“All, or very nearly all, the emeralds mined to-day come from Colombia. And, in spite of the supposed higher value of diamonds, the emerald is the most precious of gems. Carat for carat, a flawless emerald would bring perhaps three times the price of a flawless diamond in the jewelry market. India, the storehouse of precious stones, is credited with producing the first emeralds, but the oriental emerald is not identical with the modern gem, as it is a variety of the ruby, of a green color, and extremely rare. The stone that adorned Aaron’s armor, described in the writings of Moses, if it was a real emerald and not a carbuncle, may have come from the mines of Coptos in Egypt, which furnished the ancients with the precious green gems. Certain of these old mines are known as ‘Cleopatra’s Mines,’ because that remarkable Egyptian queen is supposed to have obtained her jewels from that source. Nero wore an emerald monocle at the gladiatorial combats that came perhaps from the mines of Ethiopia. The Museum of Naples contains fine emeralds taken from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, some of which are carved, and the history of this gem shows that it was highly treasured from the earliest recorded times.... “Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador were ravished of their mineral wealth; so wonderful emeralds, as part of the spoil, found their way into the treasury of the Spanish kings. Pizarro and Cortés sent the first emeralds from the New World to Spain, where they acquired the name ‘Spanish emeralds.’ Tradition has it that an Aztec gem appropriated by Cortés was valued at forty thousand ducats. Another wonderful stone, the size of an ostrich egg, was found in the Manka Valley, Peru, where the Indians worshiped it as the Goddess of Emeralds. The Spanish conquerors opened up the mines in Colombia in 1540, enslaving the Indians to work them. The richest mineral areas were those of Muzo and Cosquez, about 75 miles north of Bogotá, at an elevation of about 6500 feet above sea-level. A curious fact in the history of these latter mines is that they were closed and lost to the world in an enveloping forest of jungle for over a hundred years, and only rediscovered some fourteen years ago. The Government of Colombia controls the exploitation, leasing the mining districts to the working companies.