A SPECIAL loan exhibition of Australian opals and other gemstones, from the collections of Mr. Kelsey I. Newman, has been arranged for this Coronation month at the Geological Museum in South Kensington. The exhibition comprises many of the most beautiful opals hitherto obtained from New South Wales, including the famous ‘Flame Queen’, a magnificent and unique stone reputed to be the finest specimen yet won from Australian opal fields. Most of the stones are ‘black’ opals from the Lightning Ridge field, New South Wales, where the gem occurs in fissures or joints in sandy sediments of Cretaceous age. Since the ‘black’ opals from this area first came into the market about 1908, more than a million pounds worth of these stones has been produced from Australian sources. A collection of Australian sapphires, principally golden stones, is also exhibited. These are from the alluvial deposits of Anakie in Queensland, from which locality stones to the value of £113,000 have been produced since 1921. Other temporary exhibitions at the Museum include a display of recent presentations of semi-precious and ornamental stones presented by H.M. Queen Mary; and a small exhibit on the geology and history of the Coronation Stone, which is compared to Old Red Sandstones of similar petrography from the neighbourhood of Scone in Perthshire.