GEM EXPERT

Lake County Mail, Issue 30, 17 December 1947, Page 5

GEM EXPERT

YOUNG AUSTRALIAN GIRL FASCINATING WORK Grey-bearded or bald-headed Jews and Gentiles who have spent a lifetime in the jewellery trade still think they have something to leam from a slight, diffident 26-year-old Australian girl. She is Mrs Sylvia Whincup, M.Sc., and she lectures to a class comprising 20 members of the Australian Gemmologicnl Association, Avho are taking a two-year course in the scientific identification of gem-stones. They include both practising and potential jewellers. Although jewels play quite a part in Sylvia Whineup’s Avorking life, she herself wears only a narrow gold Avedding ring, token of less than a year of married life as Avife of the late FlyingOfficer R. Whincup, R.A.A.F., avlio avus reported missing after a mission over Surabaya. Throughout her science course at the Melbourne University, Airs Whincup collected all the scholarships and exhibitions open to her, finally taking her- master’s degree with first-class honours. TESTING GEMS In her Avork as mineralogist at Melbourne’s National Museum, one of Mrs Whineup’s duties is to test any gems sent in by the public. She has no spectacular record of valueless-looking stones that turned out to be Avorth thousands, or generation treasured heirlooms proved to be paste. However, a number of dealers and oAvners are grateful to her for proving the true A'aluc of their stones. Her fear is that some day scientific truth and sympathy for romance may come into conflict, if her tests should reveal that one of the diamonds brought to her by engaged girls is false. Her main Avork is- the classification and indexing of. the museum’s 20,000 specimens of minerals and rocks. There are so many specimens waiting for her lens, microscope and balance that they overfloAV the drawers of filing cabinets and laboratory benches, and huge cases of them spill into the passages outside.