gems, general gemology, gem testing, gem cutting, treatments, filters, physics, chemistry, crystallography, mineralogy, gem properties

Sinkankas: No doubt influenced by the lack of explanation in ordinary gemological textbooks, Walton studied physical chemistry and crystallography to bring before other students of gemology a simply-written text on subjects that are ordinarily not broached until college. Topics: nature and properties of atoms, crystal structures and crystallography, geological environments of gemstone deposits (!) but returning to the main theme with discussion of the properties of gem crystals, and ending with a dissertion on lapidary treatments. This last chapter, according to Webster's review in Journal of Gemmology, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1953, pp. 36–37, seems lost" and could have been omitted without loss to the rest of the text. Eric Bruton, The Gemmologist, Vol. 21, 1952, pp. 218–219, puts it well, "not a book for the average jeweller, but it is a book, and a very good one indeed, for the keen gemmologist, who will find in this one column all the up-to-date information on the basic sciences that he would otherwise have to search for in the works of many authorities in different subjects." There are some trivial errors and surprisingly poor crystal drawings."