Here the stones are found in Calcite deposits occurring in granular limestone on the hill sides and in the clayey alluvial deposits of the river beds. These workings are of very great age and until 1885 were the monopoly of the Burmese Crown, the King being known as Lord of the Rubies. In this country the ruby fields are called “Byon,” and the miners “Twin-tsas” (mine eaters). These Twin-tsas were forced to surrender to the monarch all big stones found by them, which stones were carefully guarded in the Royal Treasure House. One of the mine eaters found a large and beautiful gem which, in order to escape the selfish conditions imposed, he divided into two parts; one of these he handed over to the officers of the King, the other he endeavoured to conceal. The plot it seems failed, with what result to the unfortunate “Eater” is not told. The weight of these two sections after the cutter had exerted his skill on them was 98 and 74 carats. A fine Burma ruby called “Gnaga Boh,” or the Dragon Lord (the folklore of the East connects rubies and dragons)—weighed when found over 40 carats, losing about half in the cutting. The uncut part of the Great Burmese Ruby (a stone that weighed 400 carats and was split into three parts, two of which were cut) was sold in Calcutta for 7 lakhs of rupees (at the exchange rate of two shillings English for the rupee a lakh would equal £10,000). Marco Polo writes of the great ruby possessed by the King of the Island of Seilan (Ceylon), “The finest and biggest in the world”: “It is about a palm in length and as thick as a man’s arm: to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth: it is quite free from flaw and is as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could not be named. The great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the King as a favour to sell this to him offering to give for it the ransom of a city or, in fact, what the King would. But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it for it had come to him from his ancestors.”