Leisure hours among the gemsHamlin, Augustus C. (Augustus Choate)
Science
Leisure hours among the gems
Hamlin, Augustus C. (Augustus Choate)
Gems; Precious stones
Emeralds are found in Siberia, and some of the localities may have
furnished to the ancients the Scythian gems which Pliny and others
mention. In the Wald district magnificent crystals have been found
embedded in mica-slate. One of these--a twin-crystal, now in the
imperial cabinet at St. Petersburg--is seven inches long, four inches
broad, and weighs four and a half pounds. There is another mass in the
same collection which measures fourteen inches long by twelve broad
and five thick, weighing sixteen and three-quarter pounds troy. This
group shows twenty crystals from a half inch to five inches long, and
from one to two inches broad. They were discovered by a peasant cutting
wood near the summit of the mountain. His eye was attracted by the
lustrous sparkling amongst the decomposed mica where the ground had
been exposed by the uprooting of a tree by the violence of the wind. He
collected a number of the crystals, and brought them to Katharineburg
and showed them to M. Kokawin, who recognized them and sent them to
St. Petersburg, where they were critically examined by Van Worth and
pronounced to be emeralds. One of these crystals was presented by the
Emperor to Humboldt when he visited St. Petersburg, and it is now
deposited in the Berlin collection. Quite a number of emeralds are
now brought from the Siberian localities, and it is believed that
enterprise and capital would produce a large supply of the gem.
Near Salsberg, in the Tyrol, the emerald occurs in a mica-slate which
appears on the face of a very steep precipice difficult of access,
and about 8,700 feet above the sea-level. They are of good color, but
much impaired in their transparency by foreign matter and imperfect
crystallization. Some of the finest stones yielded by this locality
were exhibited as cabinet specimens by the Emperor of Russia at the
Paris Exposition.
The supply of emeralds from South America is very limited, and
may be ascribed to want of skilful mining, as well as to climate,
the political condition of the country, and the indolence of its
inhabitants. The localities cannot be exhausted, for they are too
numerous and extensive. The elevated regions in Granada admit of
scientific exploration by Europeans, and at the present day the
only emerald-mining operations conducted in South America have been
prosecuted near Santa Fé de Bogota by a French company, which has paid
the Government $14,000 yearly for the right of mining, all the emeralds
obtained being sent to Paris to be cut by the lapidaries of that city.
In the Atacama districts, and along the banks of the River of Emeralds,
the physical obstructions are difficult to overcome; and pestilential
diseases of malignant character forbid the long sojourn of the
European. Yet the introduction of Chinese labor may prove successful
and highly remunerative, since the coolie reared among the jungles and
rice-swamps of Southern China is quite as exempt from malarial fevers
as the negro.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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