Topaz and Beryl: Locations and Markets

Topaz. True topaz, of wine-yellow color, comes mostly from Brazil. Ceylon also furnishes yellow topaz. Asiatic Russia furnishes fine large blue or blue-green crystals resembling aquamarine in appearance. Most of the topaz found in other localities is pale or colorless. Several of our western States, notably Utah, Colorado, and California, furnish colorless topaz. Mexico and Japan also produce it. It is seldom cut, for, while producing a rather brilliant stone, it has little "fine" and is therefore not very attractive.

Emerald and Aquamarine. Beryl of the emerald variety is exceedingly scarce in the earth. Most of the best emerald comes from Colombia, South America. Large crystals of paler color come from the Urals.

Like ruby and spinel, emerald usually originates in limestone. One is tempted to suspect that these stones are of aqueous origin and that sapphires, and beryl, other than emerald, are more likely of igneous origin.

Beryls of the aquamarine type occur in many places, but usually of too pale a tint, or too imperfect, to be worthy of cutting. Fine gem beryl of blue and blue-green tints comes from Siberia and from several places in the Ural Mountains on their Asiatic slopes.

The Minas Garaes district of Brazil, famous for all kinds of gem stones, furnishes most of the aquamarine of commerce. The pegmatite dikes of Haddam Neck, Conn., of Stoneham, Me., and of San Diego County, Cal., have furnished splendid aquamarine and other beryl. These dikes, according to the geological evidence, are the result of the combined action of heat and water. Thus both melting and dissolving went on together and as a result many fine gem minerals of magnificent crystallization were formed during the subsequent cooling. The longer the cooling lasted and the more free space for growth the crystals had, the larger and more perfect they got. The author has himself obtained finely crystallized aquamarine and tourmaline from the Haddam, Conn., locality and the best specimens there occur in "pockets" or cavities in the coarse granite. Within, these pockets are lined with crystals of smoky quartz, tourmaline, beryl, and other minerals. Sometimes crystals occur in mud or clay masses inside the cavities and such crystals, having been free to grow uninterruptedly in every direction, were perfect in form, being doubly terminated, and not attached anywhere to the rock.