Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/179



What has an antiquarian and ethnological book to do with geology? Something, we reply, if it contain any geological facts. And geological facts are spread about in antiquarian, and ethnological, and geographical, and many other sorts of books that appear to have no particular connection whatever with the science of rocks and fossil remains. There is an old adage referring to the futility of looking for a needle in a load of hay; and, although we should never attempt to search through the thousands of volumes of travels, descriptions of races, of idols, and of the dug-up relics of times gone by, for the few disseminated facts they contain, yet there is no reason why we should not adopt Captain Cuttle's famous principle of "when found make a note of," and record these accidental incidents as they fall in our way. So it is that in noticing Mr. Bollaert's book here, we shall offer an olla podrida of gleanings, rather than a systematic review. We shall pay less attention to the fair of Turmequé than to the emeralds which are brought there; we shall dwell less on the exhortations of Xue at Bosa than to the rib which the Spaniards found there venerated by the Indians, and believed to have been brought thither by that personage. In a foot-note about emeralds, we are told the green varieties are found at Muzo, north of Bogotá, and that tantalic acid and columbium occur in some varieties. Fine emeralds can be seen at Carthagena, extracted from the mines of Muzo by a French company. They are found in attached and imbedded crystals in alluvium, but the finest are from veins in a blue slate, of the age of our lower chalk, in the valley of Muzo. One statue of the Virgin in the Cathedral of Bogotá, besides 1358 diamonds and other precious stones, has 1205 emeralds. Not far from the mountain of Itoco, in the country of the Muzos, were found, in 1555, two emeralds weighing 24,000 castellanos. Three leagues from Itoco is Abissi, where emeralds are found. In the East Indies, medicinal and talismanic virtues are ascribed to this gem. The Great Exhibition of 1851 contained the finest known emerald, two inches long, weighing 8 ozs. 18 dwts., which came from Muzo, and is supposed to have been brought to England by Don Pedro, who sold it to the Duke of Devonshire. We are not informed how the Chibchas worked emeralds and other hard stones; but the Mexicans, with tools made of copper and tin, fashioned emeralds into flowers, fish, etc. Cortez sent an emerald to Spain, the base of which was as broad as the palm of the hand.

But to return to the bone of Nemterequetaba or Xue, the ancient prophet of the Chibehas, who came from the East, wore a long beard, and had his hair tied in a fillet, for it brings us to another topic of some interest. Mr. Bollaert takes away all the romance of this religiously-preserved relic—the Goth! "It is probable," he hints, "this was the rib of a mastodon, for bones of that animal are found in the alluvium of Suacha, where teeth and other fossil remains are also met with. Holton says this place is famous for the bones of carnivorous (?) elephants once exhumed here,"

Coal exists at Cirnaga de Oro, on the River Sinu; on the banks of the Carare; at Conejo, below Hondu; also near Bogotá, and is used at Mr. Wilson's iron-works. It also occurs in Veraguas, Chiriqui, and Costa Rica, and on the Isle of Muerto, and at Tarraba. The coal is probably,