Campbell Bridges

AP writes:

Geologist Campbell Bridges's fascination with a rare, shimmering green stone known as tsavorite has meant a lifetime of adventure. He has dodged elephants and buffalo, mined in areas infested by snakes and scorpions, all on a quest for the gem. It all started more than 40 years ago, he recalled recently as he sat by a crackling fire beneath his tree house deep in the Kenyan bush, where he was directing his latest mining project.

It was 1961 and Bridges, a bearded Scotsman with a voice reminiscent of Sean Connery during his James Bond period, was working for the British colonial government in what was then Rhodesia, searching for uranium when he attracted the attention of an angry buffalo. He jumped into a gully to escape, and noticed a green glint in the earth. The buffalo, unable to reach him, eventually wandered away. But tsavorite never loosened its hold on Bridges's imagination. As he scrambled along the gully that day, he didn't have time to mark the location of that first sample.Back then, tsavorite did not even have a name. Bridges knew of the rare and precious member of the green garnet family, but had never before seen it.

Seven years later, he became the first man to record the discovery of gemstone quality tsavorite, in Tanzania. Gemstone-quality tsavorite has so far been mined only in Tanzania and Kenya. It varies from light to dark green and is exceptionally lively and brilliant, even before polishing "A perfect tsavorite is like green diamond," Bridges, 68, said in this remote, southeastern corner of Kenya. "You don't even need to rotate it to see its brilliance." Tsavorite (pronounced TZAH vor rite) is one of the youngest green gemstones in the world and is as hard as one of the oldest, emerald. Tsavorites are much rarer than emeralds. They also are much tougher, less brittle, more durable and twice as brilliant _ qualities that attract jewelry designers, Richard Wise, a geologist and president of R. W. Wise, Goldsmiths Inc. said by telephone from Lenox, Massachusetts.

Tsavorite also is one of the few gemstones that does not need to be treated with heat, oil, irradiation, dyes or coating to enhance color, remove impurities and hide flaws. "It is one of the few natural gemstones in the world," said Kennedy Kamwathi, a jeweler in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

For all its qualities, retailers are reluctant to stock and promote a gemstone whose supplies are not guaranteed a situation that has prevented tsavorite from becoming better known.Because deposits, known as pockets, are small and fragile, tsavorite is difficult to mine. Miners start by blasting rocks with dynamite, then use drills, and finally chisel to chip their way to the prized crystals. In recent years, additional tsavorite production has come on stream along the Mozambican gemstone belt _ a geological formation that runs from the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar to continental Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan, Bridges said.

The belt is laden with tsavorite, rubies, sapphires, turquoise, rodolite, garnets and other prized stones. "I would say the Mozambican belt is the richest gem belt in Africa," said Bridges, who has explored large parts of the formation.Bridge's gemstone adventure has suffered some setbacks, the most serious of which occurred in 1970, when the then-socialist Tanzanian government nationalized his tsavorite mines without compensation. He moved to neighboring Kenya, reviewed colonial geological records to search for suitable rock formations and found tsavorite three months later _ near two national parks that have the largest elephant population in the country.Bridges and Henry Platt, then deputy head of Tiffany, named the gemstone after the wildlife sanctuaries, Tsavo East and Tsavo West national parks.

Tsavorite costs between US$900-2,000 per carat in shops. Bigger stones will go for much more. "At the moment, tsavorite's price is 1/10th of the price of an equivalent quality emerald," Bridges said. "Emerald was found thousands of years ago, so it had more time to be romanced." It already is romantic enough for Bridges. He said he proposed to his wife using a ruby mined from one of his operations, but plans to give her a two-carat tsavorite to mark their 40th anniversary.