Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 646 Emerald

The next day when they got into the water, Liang En and the others swam over to the spot that they had predicted the previous day and started digging. As a result, just as they dug a small hole of [-] to [-] centimeters, Joan's hand touched a hard object. .

"There seems to be something under here." After realizing that something was wrong, Joan swam up to Liang En, and then told Liang En what she had found through the method of mask-to-mask transmission.

"I can guarantee that this is definitely not a stone from the bottom of the sea itself, because there is no stone on this bottom that can exceed the size of a fist, and it is likely to be something brought on board."

"Let me have a look." Liang En immediately swam over to check after hearing Joan's words. Although they couldn't see it directly from the bottom of the sea, they could still tell that it was a stone the size of a gas tank.

However, unlike ordinary stones, the top of this stone is not very smooth, and it can be seen with the naked eye that there are seven or eight crystal pillars, which looks like the original stone of some kind of mineral.

"This thing is an emerald—" Liang En showed a shocked expression after turning on the waterproof flashlight he carried with him and taking a photo on the stone.

Even though he has a card and has mastered powers that normal people may never be able to master, he is still extremely shocked when he sees those emerald crystal pillars that are about the size of his forearm.

Emerald, a gemstone of stunning color.It is the birthstone of May, symbolizing hope, happiness and the vitality of all things revived in spring. Europe has always loved emerald and designated it as one of the five gems.

Its name comes from the ancient Greek word for "smaragdus" (green).In the book "Natural History" written by Pliny the Elder in Rome in the first century AD, he once described emerald like this, "...nothing is greener than it".

But the earliest use of emeralds was not Europeans.As early as 4000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians regarded emerald as a symbol of eternal life, and often inlaid it on scarab-shaped amulets to bring good luck to the wearer and protect them from evil.

Indians worship emeralds very much. They believe that emeralds can bring good luck and good mood to the wearers. Ordinary people are proud of owning an emerald, and the royal family has a large collection of emerald treasures that are priceless.

Before the 16th century, Egypt was the only known source of emeralds.It was not until the middle of the 16th century that the Spanish colonists discovered that the Inca nation in South America had a large number of more fascinating emeralds.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spaniards transported a large number of plundered precious emeralds back to Europe, and the emeralds captivated countless Europeans with its unique and charming style.

For a long time, European princes and nobles competed to wear emerald jewelry from South America, thinking it was fashionable.The emeralds held by Indians were basically imported from Europeans in this era.

Predatory mining by the Spanish continued until 1886, when the pits were taken over by the then independent Republic of Gran Colombia.

Then the mine was transferred to the Republic of New Granada, the Federation of Nine Provinces of Colombia, the United States of Colombia until today's Republic of Colombia.

Today, Colombia is the world's largest producer of high-quality emeralds, almost monopolizing the international market, accounting for 80% of the world's total production of high-quality emeralds. The emeralds produced are famous for their good color, good texture and large output.

Under normal circumstances, emeralds will be taken out from the calcite-nanfeldspar veins of the sedimentary rock series after being excavated, and then only emerald columnar crystals with an average length of two to three centimeters are left to facilitate transportation.

It's just that this piece of emerald ore is too big, so the colony at that time may have planned to dedicate this piece of ore to the king as a rare treasure.

Because the material of emerald is very brittle and cracked, most of the ores produced in the most famous Muzo mining area in Colombia can only be polished into gems below 0.5 carats, and it is rare to be polished into gems larger than 2 carats.

And now at least half of the emerald crystal pillars on the ore in front of Liang En exceeded 1 carats. It was no wonder that the nobles in those colonies chose them as gifts for the king at that time.

After using the air bag to float the stone to the surface of the water, they quickly put the stone on the cart by the crane behind the boat under the support of Fan Meng, and then avoided other people to put the stone into Liang En's current residence. in the captain's cabin.

Liang En knew that it was best not to test human nature, so he arranged this secret transportation channel before he went into the water, so as to prevent other people on board from seeing it and having undue thoughts.

The weight of this ore is about 380kg. There are seven large emerald crystal columns on it, and densely packed small emerald crystals are inlaid next to it.

Under the sunlight coming in through the portholes, these crystals all present a bright green color that looks very comfortable, and at the same time, the inclusions and cracks are almost invisible from the top with the naked eye.

The grading of emeralds is graded from two angles of color and purity. The highest grade is called bright green, which is the highest grade of emerald color.

This color is the darkest of all emerald greens to avoid opacity or over-pigmentation, and the vividness of such emeralds is excellent.

Next is bright green. Emeralds with bright green are slightly lighter in color than bright green, but considering that the highest-grade green emeralds are relatively rare, this second-level emerald color is also extremely popular.

A deeper level is deep, the color depth green, but because of color saturation, this color is usually more vivid than bright green.This color is still quite rare and popular.

Next is medium blue, this kind of emerald gives people a good visual experience, the color is not deep and not light, and has a good vividness.The saturation of this color emerald is between 50% and 70%.

After that comes the softest green, which is slightly lighter than medium green, and the saturation is between 20% and 40%.As for emeralds of a lower grade than soft green, they can only be used as specimens and have no value.

In addition to color grading, there is also clarity grading: the clarity of emeralds is determined by the naked eye to identify whether they are pure, which is completely different from other gemstones that need to be viewed with a [-]x magnifying glass.

Because the impurities contained in emeralds are generally more obvious than diamonds, there is no need to use a large magnifying glass to observe them.There is no obvious difference in price between an emerald recognized as pure by the naked eye and a pure emerald recognized under a 10x magnifying glass.

At the same time, for other gemstones, color, clarity, weight and cut have almost the same impact on price, but the impact of emerald color on price is significantly more than clarity.

Therefore, in the grading system of emeralds, the clarity grading is relatively simple: the highest level is flawless (FL/IF), which means that it is 100% free of impurities under the naked eyes of professional jewelers or experts. Of course, Liang En’s enhanced vision is also Calculate.

The second level is very fine impurities (VVS). Non-professionals cannot see any flaws, but professional jewelers or experts can observe very fine impurities.

The third level is very fine impurities (VS), which can be found by non-professionals under careful observation.

The fourth level is small impurities (SI), which can be found by non-professionals under careful observation, but it does not affect the color and brilliance of emerald.

The last level is impurities (I) impurities are obvious and have an impact on the color and brilliance of emeralds.

In addition, there is another special thing that is oil. Because emeralds are flawed and cracked, the oil soaking runs through the whole process from mining to sales. After the miners dig out the emeralds, they will soak them in oil. There is also a method of resin filling.

Although I don't know how the ancient people did it, it is certain that after hundreds of years of soaking underwater, no matter how much oil was soaked in the past, it should not exist now.

The emerald Liang En found this time was bright green, flawless and oil-free, and it was the top emerald no matter what.It can even be called a rare treasure, so how to deal with it becomes a big problem.

(End of this chapter)