Auguste Victor Louis Verneuil (French: [vɛʁnœj]; 3 November 1856 – 27 April 1913) was a French chemist best known for inventing the first commercially viable process for the manufacture of synthetic gemstones. In 1902 he discovered the "flame fusion" process, today called the Verneuil process, which remains in use today as an inexpensive means of making artificial corundum, or rubies and sapphires.