small, but of fine color; in the Altai Mountains they
are very large and of a greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges of
Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier of China, they are found in
the greatest perfection. They occur on the summit of the mountain
in irregular veins of micaceous and white indurated clay, and are
greenish-yellow, pure pale green, greenish-blue and sky-blue. The
chief matrix of the beryl all over the world is graphic granite, but
it may occur in other rocks. The light green stones of Limoges in
France appear in a vein of quartz traversing granite. At Royalston we
observed them to spring seemingly from the felspar and project into
smoky quartz, becoming more transparent as they advanced into the
harder stone.

The beryl possesses the same crystalline form and specific gravity as
the emerald, but its hardness (especially in the yellow varieties) is
sometimes greater. The only perceptible difference in the two stones
is in the color. Cleaveland thought that as the emerald and beryl had
the same essential characters, they might gradually pass into each
other; and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both chrome and iron in one
specimen, was led to take the same view. The crystals of true emerald
are almost always small (with the exception of those found in the Wald
district in Siberia), whilst those of the beryl vary from a few
grains to more than a ton in weight. The crystals of both are almost
invariably regular hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly modified.
Those of the beryl we sometimes find quite flat, as though they
had been compressed by force: then again they are acicular and of
extraordinary length, considering their slender diameter. Sometimes
their lateral faces are longitudinally striated, and as deeply as the
tourmaline, so that the edges of the prism are rendered indistinct.
Other crystals are curved, and some perforated in the axis like
the tourmaline, so as to contain other minerals. Sometimes they are
articulated like the pillars of basalt, and separated at some distance
by the intervening quartz. These modified forms give rise to curious
speculations as to their formation and origin. If we admit the action
of fire (which is improbable), then the separation may be easily
explained; but if we insist that they were deposited in the wet way
and by slow process, how can we account for the dislocation? "By
electricity," whispers a friend--"by telluric magnetism, that
wonderful unexplained