Today the country’s human population is a tumultuous stew spiced with Malay, African, Arab, French, Chinese and Indian ingredients. While lying just 400 km from the coast of Africa, it was not settled until roughly 2000 years ago, and not by Africans, but by adventurous sailors from the Malayo-Indonesian Archipelago, some 6400 km to the east. The Island of Madagascar is an anomaly in many respects. Map of Madagascar, showing the location of major ruby and sapphire mines and major roads. From that moment on, I knew Madagascar not just as something out of a Jules Verne novel, but as the “Beryl Island.” The following is based on the author’s 2005, 20 visits, along with various published sources. Later, in gemology class, my teacher again brought up the subject of this forgotten land, mentioning that the famous French naturalist, Alfred Lacroix had written a paper about it ( Un Voyage au Pays des Béryls). My first recollection of Madagascar was grade school, where we dutifully learned that a prehistoric fish, long thought extinct, had been fished from the coastal waters of this errant isle. Since the mid-1990s, Madagascar has become one of the world's most important sources. This excerpt from Ruby & Sapphire: A Gemologist's Guide (2017) details the ruby and sapphire deposits of Madagascar.

Pink sapphire