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Lapis
lazuli usually occurs in 'limestone, but in connection with granite,
so that it seems to be a product of the eruption of the granite through
the limestone. The lapis lazuli of best quality comes from Asia, the
mines being at Badakschan, in the northeastern part of Afghanistan, on
the Oxus River. The mining is done by building great fires on the rocks
and throwing water on them to break them. The yield at present is
small, not over 1,500 pounds a year being obtained. The lapis lazuli
from these mines is distributed all over Asia, going chiefly to China
and Russia. The price realized is said to be from $50 to $75 per pound.
Lapis lazuli of poorer quality comes from a region at the western end
of Lake Baikal in Siberia. The only other important locality is in the
Andes Mountains of Chile near the boundary of the Argentine Republic.
This material is not much used at the present time, on account of its
poor quality, but it was employed by the Incas for decorative purposes.
One mass 24x12x8 inches, doubtless from this locality, was found in a
Peruvian grave, and is one of the largest masses of lapis lazuli known.
The
walls of a palace at Zarskoe-Selo, Russia, built by order of Catherine
II., are entirely lined with slabs of lapis lazuli and amber.
Pulverized, the stone was used as a tonic and purgative by the Greeks
and Romans, and as late as the sixteenth century was supposed to be a
cure for melancholy. The name lapis lazuli means blue stone. Armenian
stone is another term by which the stone is known in trade.
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