Sapphire
a gem excelled in value by no precious stone except the diamond, and regarded as a variety of corundum, highly transparent and brilliant. It is sometimes colorless or nearly so. more frequently exhibits exquisite color, generally a bright red (i. e., the ruby) or a beautiful blue -the latter being that commonly called sapphire. Purplish or greenish color indicates a flaw; and usual defects are clouds, milky spots, flakes, or stripes. It is found crystallized, usually in six-sided prisms, terminated by six-sided pyramids; it is sometimes found imbedded in gneiss, but more frequently occurs in alluvial soils.
It occurs in Bohemia and Saxony, but European sapphires are of no commercial importance. The finest are found in Ceylon; Kashmir and Burma also produce fine specimens; and sapphires are found in Victoria, New South Wales, and parts of the United States. The value depends on quality more than on size, and does not increase with the size as does the ruby.
SAPPHO (saf'ō), a renowned Greek lyric poet; born in the island of Lesbos about 612 B. C. She wrote nine books of poems, but besides some small fragments of her poems we have in complete ments of her poems we have in complete form only a "Hymn to Aphrodite" and an "Ode to a Beautiful Girl."