Emerald

The em­er­ald is one of the most beau­ti­ful and noble gem­stones that is some­times val­ued even more than dia­monds. The em­er­ald is a vari­ety of beryl silic­ate; the pres­ence of chro­mi­um gives an em­er­ald its deep-green or blu­ish-green col­or. Some­times em­er­alds can con­tain slight traces of mica or pyr­ite, mak­ing them even more valu­able.

Em­er­alds have been ap­pre­ci­ated since the An­cient Egyp­tian peri­od, but they were in­tro­duced in Europe only in the 17th cen­tury when the con­quista­dors re­turned from South Amer­ica. South Amer­ica has the most fam­ous em­er­ald de­pos­its in the world. Oth­er well-known de­pos­its of em­er­alds are loc­ated in South Africa; they are the ori­gin of the biggest known em­er­ald on Earth found in 1856 at the Somer­set mine. This stone is named the Mogul Em­er­ald and it weights 217.8 car­at. One of its sides is covered with flowery en­grav­ings, and the oth­er side is covered with pray­er texts.

An­oth­er fam­ous em­er­ald is the Duke of Devon­shire em­er­ald found at Muzo mines in Columbia. It was presen­ted to the Duke by the former gov­ernor of Brazil, Em­per­or Don Pedro I, in 1831. The em­er­ald is far smal­ler than the Mogul em­er­alds; the cross sec­tion meas­ures 5 cm, height is about 5 cm, and it weighs 132.25 car­at. The stone fea­tures the Per­sian in­scrip­tion: “The one who owns this charm is un­der the spe­cial pro­tec­tion of Lord.”

Small em­er­alds of dif­fer­ent tints are of­ten used for em­bel­lish­ing pieces of jew­elry. Jew­el­ers value em­er­alds be­cause of their clar­ity with the deep green stones val­ued more than the pale green stones. Big em­er­alds are of­ten non-trans­par­ent and dull so they are rarely used in jew­elry. Typ­ic­ally, em­er­alds are step-cut and some­times they are dia­mond cut.

A dis­tinct­ive fea­ture of em­er­alds is their abil­ity to re­flect dif­fer­ent shades of green de­pend­ing on the angle at which the light enters their fa­cets. This is true for all beryl gem­stones - the deep­er the col­or of the stone, the more re­flec­ted col­or vari­ations that can be ob­served.

Some people be­lieve that the em­er­ald sym­bol­izes sin­cer­ity and pur­ity of the soul. Open-hearted and in­no­cent people are usu­ally lucky with em­er­alds; mean­while, li­ars and mean-spir­ited people tend to get sick and be­come un­lucky with em­er­alds. Em­er­alds are also per­ceived to be a sort of portal between the hu­man and spir­it worlds: em­er­alds are be­lieved to en­able one to re­call the past and see the fu­ture.