Shakespeare and Precious Stones
in our time is Russia, the richest deposits being those discovered in 1825, on the Iss, a tributary of the Tura, in the Urals. Other valuable deposits are in the district of Nizhni-Tagilsk. Platinum also occurs in Brazil, California, and British Columbia, associated with gold, as well as in Borneo, New South Wales, Australia, and in New Zealand. Its use in gem-mountings began about 1870, and from 1880 onward it has become more and more favored, until now it has almost entirely superseded gold in the finest jewelry, especially for diamond settings. Long before the metal was known and used in Europe, ornamental use of it was made in South America, in the district we have mentioned, the material not being fused, but simply forged out of the nuggets found in the deposits.
That but few fine diamonds were in Europe when Shakespeare wrote has already been noted; indeed, the annual importation from India, then the only source, can hardly have exceeded #100,000 on an average, while at the present day the value of the diamonds from the great African mines imported into Europe and America amounts to from $40,000,000 to $60,000,000 each year.
In King James's reign, besides Heriot, William
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