Emeralds are found in Siberia, and some of the localities may have furnished to the ancients the Scythian gems which Pliny and others mention.  In the Wald district magnificent crystals have been found embedded in mica-slate.  One of these—­a twin-crystal, now in the Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg—­is seven inches long, four inches broad, and weighs four and a half pounds.  There is another mass in the same collection which measures fourteen inches long by twelve broad and five thick, weighing sixteen and three-quarter pounds troy.  This group shows twenty crystals from a half inch to five inches long, and from one to two inches broad.  They were discovered by a peasant cutting wood near the summit of the mountain.  His eye was attracted by the lustrous sparkling amongst the decomposed mica and where the ground had been exposed by the uprooting of a tree by the violence of the wind.  He collected a number of the crystals, and brought them to Katharineburg and showed them to M. Kokawin, who recognized them and sent them to St. Petersburg, where they were critically examined by Van Worth and pronounced to be emeralds.  One of these crystals was presented by the emperor to Humboldt when he visited St. Petersburg, and it is now deposited in the Berlin collection.  Quite a number of emeralds are now brought from the Siberian localities, and it is believed that enterprise and capital would produce a large supply of the gem.[B]

The supply of emeralds from South America is very limited, and may be ascribed to want of skillful mining, as well as to climate, the political condition of the country and the indolence of its inhabitants.  The localities cannot be exhausted, for they are too numerous and extensive.  The elevated regions in Granada admit of scientific exploration by Europeans, and at the present day the only emerald-mining operations conducted in South America have been prosecuted near Santa Fe de Bogota by a French company, which has paid the government fourteen thousand dollars yearly for the right of mining, all the emeralds obtained being sent to Paris to be cut by the lapidaries of that city.

In the Atacama districts, and along the banks of the River of Emeralds, the physical obstructions are difficult to overcome, and pestilential diseases of malignant character forbid the long sojourn of the European.  Yet the introduction of Chinese labor may prove successful and highly remunerative, since the coolie reared among the jungles and rice-swamps of Southern China is quite as exempt from malarial fevers as the negro.

The price of the emerald has no fixed and extended scale, like that of the diamond, and the fluctuations of its value during the past three centuries form an interesting chapter in the history of gems.