Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminum oxide with trace amounts of elements such as iron, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. It is blue, but natural "fancy" sapphires occur in yellow, purple and green colors; the only color corundum stone that the term sapphire is not used for is red, called a ruby. Pink colored corundum may be either classified as sapphire depending on locale. Natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry, they may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Because of the remarkable hardness of sapphires – 9 on the Mohs scale – sapphires are used in some non-ornamental applications, such as infrared optical components, high-durability windows, wristwatch crystals and movement bearings, thin electronic wafers, which are used as the insulating substrates of special-purpose solid-state electronics such as integrated circuits and GaN-based blue LEDs.

Sapphire is the gem of the 45th anniversary. A sapphire jubilee occurs after 65 years. Sapphire is one of the two gem-varieties of the other being ruby. Although blue is the best-known sapphire color, they occur in other colors, including gray and black, they can be colorless. A pinkish orange variety of sapphire is called padparadscha. Significant sapphire deposits are found in Australia, Cameroon, Colombia, India, Laos, Malawi, Myanmar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United States and Vietnam. Sapphire and rubies are found in the same geographical settings, but they have different geological formations. For example, both ruby and sapphire are found in Myanmar's Mogok Stone Tract, but the rubies form in marble, while the sapphire forms in granitic pegmatites or corundum syenites; every sapphire mine produces a wide range of quality, origin is not a guarantee of quality. For sapphire, Kashmir receives the highest premium, although Burma, Sri Lanka, Madagascar produce large quantities of fine quality gems.

The cost of natural sapphires varies depending on their color, size and overall quality. Sapphires that are untreated are worth far more than those that have been treated. Geographical origin has a major impact on price. For most gems of one carat or more, an independent report from a respected laboratory such as American Gemological Laboratories, Gem Research Swisslab, GIA, Gübelin, Lotus Gemology, or SSEF, is required by buyers before they will make a purchase. Gemstone color can be described in terms of hue and tone. Hue is understood as the "color" of the gemstone. Saturation refers to the vividness or brightness of the hue, tone is the lightness to darkness of the hue. Blue sapphire exists in various mixtures of its primary and secondary hues, various tonal levels and at various levels of saturation. Blue sapphires are evaluated based upon the purity of their blue hue. Violet, green are the most common secondary hues found in blue sapphires; the highest prices are paid for gems. Gems that are of lower saturation, or are too dark or too light in tone are of less value.

However, color preferences are a personal taste, like a flavor of ice cream The 423-carat Logan sapphire in the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D. C. is one of the largest faceted gem-quality blue sapphires in existence. The 422.66-ct Siren of Serendip in the Houston Museum of Natural Science is another stunning example of a Sri Lankan sapphire on public display. Sapphires in colors other than blue are called "fancy" or "parti colored" sapphires. Fancy sapphires are found in yellow, green, brown and violet hues. Particolored sapphires are those stones. Australia is the largest source of particolored sapphires. Particolored sapphires cannot be created synthetically and only occur naturally. Colorless sapphires have been used as diamond substitutes in jewelry. Pink sapphires occur in shades from light to dark pink, deepen in color as the quantity of chromium increases; the deeper the pink color, the higher their monetary value. In the United States, a minimum color saturation must be met to be called a ruby, otherwise the stone is referred to as a pink sapphire.

Padparadscha is a delicate, light to medium toned, pink-orange to orange-pink hued corundum found in Sri Lanka, but found in deposits in Vietnam and parts of East Africa. Padparadscha sapphires are rare; the name is derived from a color akin to the lotus flower. Among the fancy sapphires, natural padparadscha fetch the highest prices. Since 2001, more sapphires of this color have appeared on the market as a result of artificial lattice diffusion of beryllium. A star sapphire is a type of sapphire. Star sapphires contain intersecting needle-like inclusions following the underlying crystal structure that causes the appearance of a six-rayed "star"-shaped pattern when viewed with a single overhead light source; the i

"The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", written by British author Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 Sherlock Holmes stories collected between 1921 and 1927 as The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in the January 1924 issues of The Strand Magazine in London and Hearst's International Magazine in New York. Holmes receives an odd letter. Mr. Robert Ferguson, who comes to 221B Baker Street the next morning, has become convinced that his Peruvian second wife has been sucking their baby son's blood. By his first wife, he has a 15-year-old son named Jack, who suffered an unfortunate accident as a child and now, although he can still walk, he does not have the full use of his legs. After the bloodsucking began, Jack has unaccountably been struck twice by his stepmother, although Mr. Ferguson cannot imagine why. Since being found out by her husband, she has locked herself in her room and refused to come out. Only her Peruvian maid, Dolores, is allowed in, she takes Mrs. Ferguson her meals.

Before Holmes and Watson set off for Mr. Ferguson's house in Sussex, Holmes has deduced what is going on, it has nothing to do with vampires. Holmes's trip is made to observe and confirm what he has deduced. Upon their arrival in Sussex, Mrs. Ferguson's maid announces that her mistress is ill, Dr. Watson offers to help, he finds an agitated woman in the room upstairs – she speaks of all being destroyed, of sacrificing herself rather than breaking her husband's heart. She demands her child, with the nurse, Mrs. Mason since Mr. Ferguson has known about the bloodsucking incidents. Holmes examines the South American weapons meets the children. While Mr. Ferguson is doting on his younger son, Watson notices, he can not imagine. Holmes explains the truth about what has been happening, much to the relief of Mrs. Ferguson as this is what she has wanted: for the truth to come from someone else's lips, it turns out that the culprit is Jack, Mr. Ferguson's elder son, jealous of his young half-brother. Holmes has deduced this and confirmed it by looking at Jack's reflection in the window while his father's attention was on the baby.

Jack has been attempting to murder his half-brother by shooting poisoned darts at him, his stepmother's behaviour of sucking the baby's neck is thereby explained: she was sucking the poison out. It explains why she struck Jack, why she was sick when Holmes and Watson arrived; the wounds, were caused by the darts, not by her biting. In "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", Holmes mentions to Watson the case of the ship Matilda Briggs and the Giant Rat of Sumatra, identifying it as "a story for which the world is not yet prepared"; this single reference has been expanded upon by a number of other authors and performers who have either created their own versions of the story or alluded to it in tales of their own. In a televised adaptation of this case entitled The Last Vampyre, produced by Granada Television and starring Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, the case was altered. In the televised version, Holmes was called by the town vicar to investigate the death of the baby, with the prime suspect being the newly arrived Mr. John Stockton, a man, rumored to be descended from a family of vampires.

During this investigation, it is revealed that Jack, driven to delusions due to the childhood accident which cost him the full use of his legs, has come to believe himself to be a vampire because of the power and fear such a creature inspires, seeing Stockton as a'mentor' of sorts due to his vampire-like ability to charm women. Jack was played by Richard Dempsey, in the BBC production of the Narnia Stories by C. S. Lewis. "The Sussex Vampire" was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 1994 by Bert Coules as part of his complete radio adaptation of the canon, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson, featuring Michael Troughton as Robert Ferguson. The 2018 Japanese television drama Miss Sherlock adapted "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" in season 1, episode 4 "The Wakasugi Family", setting it in Japan

Damaschke Field Dutch Damaschke Stadium, is a sports playing field and stadium in Oneonta, New York. Used for baseball, the field has been a municipal landmark for over a hundred years; the original baseball field was opened on Memorial Day in 1905 under the name Elm Park. Numerous stars from the early years of US baseball, including Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, drew large crowds at the field for semi-pro and exposition games. A permanent steel grandstand was erected for spectators in 1938. In August 1968, the city renamed the site as Dutch Damaschke Stadium to honor local sports coach and counselor Ernest C. "Dutch" Damaschke, who had served as Oneonta's Recreation Commissioner for more than thirty years. The field and stadium are administered as public facilities within Oneonta's large Neahwa Park; the site was the longtime home of the area's minor league baseball team, the Oneonta Red Sox, Oneonta Yankees, Oneonta Tigers. The field has regularly hosted the Oneonta Indians football team, the Oneonta United soccer team, the Hartwick College baseball team.

It is the home field of the Oneonta Outlaws, a collegiate summer baseball team in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. A few games were staged here in late May of 1969 by the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League while their home field MacArthur Stadium was being repaired after a fire. City of Oneonta Department of Recreation Damaschke Field Views - Ball Parks of the Minor Leagues Photographs of Damaschke Field - Rochester Area Ballparks