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Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald

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SMARAGDUS.
291
describes as a table of considerable size, one single piece of solid Emerald, encircled with three rows of fine pearls, supported upon 365 feet of gems and massy gold, and esti­mated at the price of 500,000 aurei.*
It may, however, be stated here that the antique glass Emeralds possess colour, lustre, and hardness in a degree far superior to the modern pastes. One found at Rome, which had been re-cut and set in a gold ring, eclipsed in beauty almost every stone of the kind ever seen by me : in fact, it is a usual practice there amongst the gem dealers, on obtaining a fine green paste, to get it cut and faceted for a ring-stone, and as such to obtain an emerald's price for it from the unwary dilettante. The Cingalese anxiously seek after the thick bottoms of our wine-bottles, out of which they cut very fine Emeralds, which they dispose of, much to their own profit, to the "steamboat gentle-mans," exactly as Garcias ab Horto, physician to the Vice­roy of Goa, describes the Hindoos at Balagate and Bisnagar as doing for the benefit of the Portuguese, three centuries ago. The Brighton Emeralds, so largely purchased by visitors, are of similar origin : the broken bottles thrown purposely into the sea by the lapidaries of the place are, through the attrition of the shingle, speedily converted into the form of natural pebbles, and return a lucrative harvest to these ingenious artists, who truly "sow the sands," but not in vain.
Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Page of 377 Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald
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