nine cases out of ten all the beryls, emerald, aquamarine and euclase, are to be found in schists of this character.
But
modern prospectors have failed to rediscover the emerald mines of the
Incas. It is known that before the conquest of Peru by the Incas the
people of that country obtained huge quantities of emeralds; and even
long after they had lost their independence they were still able to
obtain the precious gems by some means. In Prescott's Conquest of Peru there
is an account of how the Spaniards under Pizarro came to the province
of Quito and found "the fair River of Emeralds, so called from the
quarries of the beautiful gem on its borders, from which the Indian
monarchs enriched their treasury". But modern adventurers have not
found those quarries, though the emerald deposits from which in our own
day the best stones come are also in South America, near Bogota,
capital of the Republic of Colombia.
Siberia
also produces emeralds. Comparatively recently they were discovered—in
company with aquamarines and alexandrites—in the Ural Mountains, on the
River Tako-vaya, some sixty miles N.E. from Ekaterinburg. Other
localities in which the gem has been found—not always of anything like
first-rate quality, however—are the Salzburg Alps (Habachthal), and in
Norway and New South Wales. In the U.S.A. they are found in the
hiddenite workings at Stonypoint, Alexander County, N.C.
Hernando
Cortes, conqueror of Mexico, was given, or otherwise obtained from
Montezuma, large quantities of emeralds which he despatched to the
Spanish Court. But there were certain gems which he reserved as a gift
for
