no impossibility that such reports may at some future time prove to be the shadows cast before real events. In the neighborhood of the city of La Paz there are streams carrying gold, with its usual accompanime'nt of titanic iron, wash tin, and metallic grains, the nature of which is yet undetermined. Such mineralogical associations may yet prove significant.
In regard to emerald, Doctor Bandelier states that this is the gem about which in those parts of South America more has been said than about any other. It is certain that many emeralds have existed in private hands for centuries past, since the times of the Spanish colonization. But the source whence these precious stones came, which are seen worn in rings, bracelets, and other articles of personal adornment, has never attracted due attention. Doctor Bandelier holds that never in any part of Peru (Bolivia included) did the emerald play an important part in the practical results of warlike spoils or in tribute as it did in Colombia. What is said in some mineralogical text-books relating to Peruvian emeralds is the result of geographical confusion, if not of ignorance. Emeralds were unquestionably met with at the beginning of the conquest, but not at all comparable in quantity with what Colombia yielded or with what was obtained on the Ecuadorian coast.
Hence, the number of emeralds that appeared at Cuzco, for instance, within the last century, after the interior of Peru became more accessible, is not to be ascribed to emerald localities in that region, but to the fact that the early colonists had easy opportunities for obtaining the highly prized stones from points under immediate Spanish sway and situated on the same side of the South American continent. . It is much more than likely that all the emeralds at Cuzco, La Paz, and in the interior of Bolivia originally came from Muzo in Colombia, or, in very early days, from Ecuador. The number of emeralds at Cuzco is very great, or at least has been so, and there is yet a considerable quantity remaining, although in hands that would not permit commercial manipulation of them. At La Paz, some thirty years ago, the emeralds were extensively supplanted by modern imitations (by shrewd candidates for the acquisition of gems).
Most of the emeralds still met with at Cuzco, and on the highlands in general, have what is there called a "garden;" that is, they are impure in the sense that minute fissures traverse the otherwise wellcolored stone. Such a gem with a "garden" is even looked upon with favor b}r many of the people. The cutting is usually very imperfect and the "cabochon" quite common. Everything tends to show that the gems were not originally obtained in the country, but were brought thither after the settlement by the Spaniards. Considerable wealth accumulated in the hands of early settlers, because gems could be obtained by them with much less outlay than is generally imagined.
Flickr
Stumbleupon
Scribd
