The historians, Gomara and Martyr, mention among the prizes which fell into the hands of Cortez, an immense emerald of a pyramidal form, whose base was as large as the palm of the hand; and which may have been the identical stone which crowned the skull which stood before the throne in the palace of Tezcuco. At all events, an emerald of this description Cortez sent as a present to the Emperor of Spain, together with his letters of explanation, after the fall of the city of Mexico. The letters and the various presents were intrusted to the care of two of his confidential officers, Quinones and Avila. Arriving at the Azores, Quinones lost his life in a brawl, and jeopardized the mission; but Avila escaped and put to sea, to be captured shortly after by a French privateer; and the rich spoils of the Aztecs were presented to the King of France, instead of the Emperor of Spain. Francis I. gazed with delight upon the splendors of the gem, and with a feeling of envy exclaimed that he “would like to see the clause in Adam’s testament, which entitled his brothers of Castile and Portugal to divide the New World between them.” What has become of this historic stone? The quantity of emeralds obtained by the Spaniards in their pillage of Mexico was large; but it was trifling when compared with that collected by Pizarro and his remorseless followers in the sack of Peru. Many large and magnificent stones were then obtained by the Spaniards; but the transcendent gem of all, called by the Peruvians the Great Mother, and nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was concealed by the natives, and all the efforts of Pizarro and his successors to discover it proved unavailing. Previous to the plunder of America by Cortez and his followers, emeralds were not numerous in Europe; but early in the sixteenth century they began to appear in Spain, and were soon afterwards distributed among the powerful and wealthy throughout Europe. England seems to have had at one time a large share of them, and perhaps many of them were taken by her freebooters from the richly laden Spanish galleons. In the days of Queen Elizabeth emeralds were exhibited in profusion, if we can give credence to the chronicles and inventories of that period. The parure of emeralds which the Queen of Navarre bequeathed in 1572, to her daughter Catherine, must have been of wonderful beauty and perfection. What is the stone lately given to Mustapha, the ex-premier of Tunis, by the Bey, and described as the famous emerald once belonging to the Spanish Crown? Was it one recovered from the shipwreck of Cortez, or was it one of those given away by the Spanish rulers in the early days of the conquest of Peru, when they imagined the emerald mines were as broad and exhaustless as the silver beds of Potosi?