gems, tourmaline, Ceylon, Sri Lanka

An early chemical investigation by Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin of tourmaline from Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Vauquelin subjected the mineral to chemical analysis in an attempt to determine its constituent substances and clarify its mineralogical composition. The study belongs to the period when chemical analysis was increasingly being used alongside crystallographic and physical properties to distinguish mineral species and varieties. Of particular gemological interest, the paper represents an early analytical study of gem tourmaline from one of the historically important gemstone-producing regions of Asia and contributes to the development of the chemical characterization of tourmaline at the end of the eighteenth century.