The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1915-04-03
TURQUOISE FAVOR
.|TE GEM OF ANC|ENTS

4 Il
one of the Oldest gems to be mined
and worn by man. In Egypt there were
mines of this gem worked fifteen hun.
dred years before the Christian era
and amongst the Persians it was in
high favor. The Turks priced it so
highly that the modern Europeans gave
it the name turquoise because of the
extensive use among the wealthy of
that nation, and prior to the rise of
the Turkish people, the chief source
of production at Nishjur, in Persia,
and one small area in Nubia, up the
Nile river, furnished the then known
world with turquoise.
Each of the ancient nations of the
east held this blue gem in high value.
The kings of Babylon, Nineveh, anu
Nippur and, from their days to those
of Solomon, and from Solomon to the
days of the Turks, turquoise was priz-
ed by men as amongst the first of
jewels. Woman dotted upon it as the
apple of her eye No doubt the daugh-
ter of Job, fair as the lilies of the
field, wore turquoise jewels ere the
day when her great father, the first
man of Ur, met financial failure
through the well known envy and ma
chinations of Satan. and in Egypt the
queens and the queens daughters,
from the queen of old King Shesak
down to the days of Queen Cleopatra,
each and all wore turquoise OF course,
the wife of Potiphar wore Jewels of
turquoise and most certainly the
| Queen of Sheba, when she visited Sol
omon, set off her blue veins with tur-
quoise jewels of a still richer blue,
whilst over in Palestine the gentle
Ruth was wooed and won by Boaz and
Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and the
gazelle-eyed Esther who became the
queen of King Ahasuerus of Persia,
and the sweetly perfumed, beautifully
outlined and thinly clad Salome, step
daughter of old King Herod, all wore
jewels of turquoise rich and rare.
The chalchuitl mines of Cerrill0s
had long been worked by the semi
civilized races of the southwest There
was a considerable quantity of this
turquoise and also of the garnets and
green peridots carried back to the City
of Mexico by the Spaniards and sent
from there to Spain, but the results
as to value were disappointing. The
turquoise was appreciated but it does
not appear that any one made great
fortune from it, and for about $50
years the trade in turquoise, in gar
nets and peridots of New Mexico was
carried on locally in a very small way,
but being still appreciated by the ma
tive tribes.
After the acquisition of the chief
source of these jewel lands by the
United States at the close of the Mex
lean war of 1S47, some attention was
given to the turquoise of Cerrillos, and
in the early seventies the quartz crys-
tails, the fine blood red garnets and
the peridots so richly green, formed
the basis of the famous diamond swim
die of 1871.
About the year 1894 a certain fa-
nous jewel company of New York
City took over the turquoise mines of
Cerrillos, New Mexico, from which
time dates the modern mining of Amer
lean turquoise. There were without
question some unexcelled gem tur-
quoise at Cerrillos, light blue and dark
azure blue, but there was very much
of what is since known as matrix.
Work of gem mining was pursued and
a taste for turquoise was created to as
sist in disposing of the product of this
mine at high prices. When other jewel
houses of our eastern coast saw that
there was a demand for this blue gem,
they too reached out to ind other
mines, and strange to relate, those
whom they sent into the field found
that there was an old turquoise mine
owned bv a man named James Haas
near Mineral Park, Mojave county,
Arizona, which was at once purchased
for a considerable sum; and, still far
ther to the westward, in San Bernard
ino county, California, there were
found four more old turquoise mines,
which were purchased by still another
New York jewelry firm; and two moro
in Lincoln county, Nevada, and one
north of Columbus, Nye county, Ne
vada. Each of these was taken over
bv New York owners and worked for
about FIVE years. From each mine
small quantity of high class, real gem
TURQUOISE was taken but not nearly
enough to meet the demand; to make
up for the shortage in the real pre-
cious Jewel manufacturers took the
matrix or gouge of the veins in which
there occurs thin veins and lenses OF
good or inferior turquoise, and dress
ING it, and found a market for amounts
in value equivalent to about ssOO,O00
during period of about ten years;
the matrix settings selling about one
tenth of what could be obtained for
fine blue turquoise. At present tur-
quoise may be said to have fallen out
of favor, its low price placing 1T in
the power of the rank and file to pur-
chase. and it was soon east aside by
the same rank and file, who seeing the
wealthy reject, soon rejected it them
selves.
At present there is some real fine
turquoise taken from most of the
mines above mentioned as existing IN
New Mexico, Arizona, California and
Nevada, but the quantity is small. The
New Mexican turquoise, which is much
patronized by the Navajo Indians, is
too much of yellowish and greenish
east. The amount of high grade ma.
terial falls far short of the demand
and it may be doubted if the great
amount of work done by recent own