Stevenson (“Residence in South America”), writing of the emerald mine of Las Emeraldas, says: “I never visited it owing to the superstitious dread of the natives who assured me that it was enchanted and guarded by an enormous dragon who poured forth thunder and lightning on those who dared to ascend the river.” It is peculiar how the symbols of mankind coincide: the dragon is another of the zodiacal Scorpio varieties ever opposite Taurus, and was of old regarded as the agitator of thunders, lightnings and earth commotions. Prescott, in his “History of Peru,” tells us how the Spaniards after murdering the trusting Indians raided their dwellings and seized their ornaments and precious stones, for this was the region of the esmeraldas or emeralds. One of the jewels that fell into the hands of Pizarro was as large as a pigeon’s egg. Fra Reginaldo di Pedraza, one of the Dominican missionaries, told the Spaniards that the method of proving the genuineness or otherwise of emeralds was to try if they could be broken with a hammer; Prescott adding: “The good Father did not subject his own jewels to this wise experiment, but as the stones in consequence of it fell in value, being merely regarded as coloured glass, he carried back a considerable store of them to Panama.” The Indians held that the emerald protected against poisons and cleansed man from sin. As an emblem of Eternal Spring, Iarchus included the emerald in the mystic necklace of Apollonius of Tyana. In Rosicrucian philosophy it is advised that if an emerald set in a ring of gold be placed on the solar finger of the left hand when the Sun entered Taurus, the wearer would attain his cherished aim and be enabled by the sweating of the stone to detect poisons. Experiment has shown that heat causes the emerald to lose water but does not affect its colour, hence the reports of the “sweating” emerald cannot be set aside as mythical. Specimens of the beryl family have been found in tombs and in old excavations, and there is little doubt that the stones “of the colour of transparent sea-water” found by the old Romans at Cyprus belonged to it. The Romans greatly esteemed the emerald as an eye stone and a natural specific for ophthalmia, holding that what healed and calmed the spiritual eye would heal and calm the natural eye. The Persians applied ashes of burnt emeralds to ulcers with curative effect. They said that the emerald brought mental tranquility, cured unnatural thirst, stomach troubles, jaundice, liver troubles, obstructions, gravel, stricture, bodily pains and epilepsy. Albertus Magnus also recommends it as a cure for epileptic attacks. Mystics have always regarded the emerald as of the highest worth. It is spoken of by Cardanus as an ideal gem for divinatory purposes—no doubt because of its pure spiritual import. Aristotle writes that an emerald hung from the neck or worn on the finger protects from the “falling sickness.”