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eing exposed to the air turns white. Preserved in damp earth it is
sold to unsuspecting travelers who get "stung."
In the Sinai peninsula, there are many poor, whitish stones, and
some equal to the best Persian. These are usually sold as Turkish
or Egyptian turquoise. They are found at Moses' Wells, the quarantine
station for westbound ships through the Suez Canal, nearly opposite
the town of Suez.
Beautiful stones of robin's egg blue, as well as pure azure, have
recently turned up in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada,
to say nothing of green. These deposits are now being worked
scientifically by Americans, and are proving to be among the finest
in the world. The American product is rapidly growing in favor,
and large quantities are shipped to Europe, where it finds a ready
sale among cutters.
Mexico was once a part of the ancient kingdom of the Aztecs.
Turquoise is supposed to be identical with the green precious stone
chalchihuitl. William P. Blake, who re-discovered the old turquoise
mines, on the mountain named after the stone, in the fifties, says it is
known to the Pueblo and Navajo Indians of the present time as chalche-we-to,
supposed to be a corruption of the old name. This mountain
forms part of the group Los Cerillos, 22 miles south of Santa
Fe. That these mines, worked long ago by Europeans, as the remains
show, are of great age is proved by pines, cedars and other trees,
hundreds of years old, growing on the sides of the pit. Ancient tools
of various kinds were found. The debris covered twenty acres, with
large trees growing on it, and everything pointed to the fact that
exceeding pains had been taken to conceal the exact location of the
mines, all having been carefully covered up before abandonment.
This action was caused by a national disaster which befell the Indians
in 1680. The ground being undermined by the miners, a large
section of the mountainside suddenly fell in, killing many workers,
and causing the uprising of the Pueblos, which resulted in the ex-
pulsion of the Spaniards.
Not far from Los Cerillos, but across the border in Old Mexico,
are immense turquoise deposits, much of the finest sky-blue, owned in
turn by several Americans, one the mineralogist, W. E. Hidden, who
indulged in that form of athletics known as "jumping the claim" ;
but it is a rough, barren country, similar to the opal region in
Australia, and being surrounded by desperadoes, and thirty miles
from the nearest water, as a commercial proposition it seems well-
nigh hopeless.
Work attempted the latter part of the last century in various
New Mexican mines, including the one subject to the great disaster,
proved the turquoise to be of poor quality, mostly green, and though
some money was made, the venture was gradually abandoned to
the Indians, whose methods are like the Burmese with jade, burning
the weathered rock for excavation, thereby injuring or destroying
the turquoise. Good blue is seldom found, and on account of a
fraud perpetrated, green turquoises being turned into those of the
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