Look in the eye of any cat and you may notice a unique visual glow from the slit in the cat’s eye. Not surprisingly, many people appreciate this visual look and collect gemstones that display a special optical phenomena known as cat’s eye gems.
The technical term for the cat’s eye effect is chatoyancy, derived from the French for eye of the cat (“oeil de chat”). This effect is caused by the reflection of light by parallel fibers, needles or channels in the gemstone.
This just goes to show that any time you think of something precious, you have to think of a cat.