Morganite, also known as "pink beryl", "rose beryl", "pink emerald", and "cesian (or caesian) beryl", is a rare light pink to rose gem-quality variety of beryl. Orange/yellow varieties of morganite can also be found, and color banding is common. It can be routinely heat treated to remove patches of yellow and is occasionally treated by irradiation to improve its color.
Pink beryl of fine color and good sizes was first discovered on an island on the coast of Madagascar in 1910. Some people say that the first occurrence of morganite to be described was a pale rose colored specimen from California, where it was known with other gemstone minerals, such as tourmaline and kunzite. In December 1910, the New York Academy of Sciences named the pink variety of beryl "morganite" after financier J. P. Morgan.
The ancient Greeks used the refracting property of beryl to make the first spectacles. At the time of Nero, white beryl (or goshenite) was found on the Island of Elba, and it was then cut to be used to make the first eyeglasses. Although pink, morganite is tied to the see, just like aquamarine. It is often worn on water as protection from the storms and the seas. The interesting part of this legend is that in ancient times it was also used to call the rain during droughts.
Some of the finest morganite is from Madagascar, as Brazil produces the pure pink crystals, as well as some containing aquamarine in the same crystal. On October 7, 1989, one of the largest gem morganite specimens ever uncovered, eventually called "The Rose of Maine," was found at the Bennett Quarry in Buckfield, Maine, USA. The crystal, originally somewhat orange in hue, was 23 cm (9 inches) long and about 30 cm (12 inches) across, and weighed (along with its matrix) just over 50 pounds (23 kg).
