Smyrna times., 1932-03-23
LIGHTS OF NEW YORK
Happenings in and About New
York as Told by Walter Trumbull

Happenings in and About New
York as Told by Walter Trumbull
1t was Peter Rainier who told me
about emeralds. Mr.. Rainier hap
pens to have been born in Africa,
but his great-great-grandfather was
a British admiral. 1t was for this
navy. man that Vancouver named
Mt. Rainier, in the state of Wash
ington, the glacier clad peak you
see from Paradise Inn, a resting
place which was aptly christened.
George Palmer Putnam, Johnny
Held, Freddy O'Brien, Wallace Ir-
win, Charles Hanson Towne and
were there several years ago, and
l never shall forget it. Just at
present, Peter Rainier is at the Ex-
plorers' club, having come up from
Columbia. where the emerald mine
he is working is located.
To get to the mine from New
York is a simple matter. All you
have to do is to take a boat through
the Panama canal and then go down
the Colombian coast to some such
place as Buenaventura. Then you
take a train to Bogata, the cap
ital. This takes only couple OF
days and nights and you are then
practically at your destination. A
hilly horseback ride of two addi-
tional days will bring you to the
emeralds.
The emeraldS are situated in
some rock on top of a 9,000-foot
mountain, but there is a bit of dig
ging to be done before you can get
at them. 1t is necessary, in fact,
to remove about 400 feet of noun
tain top until you get 10 the rock,
the next thing is to find the en-
eralds, the largest of which may per
haps be as big as your thumb. To
do this you crack up and sift the
rest of the mountain. Emeralds are
found as crystals, and always in
hexagonal prisms. Moreover, when
they are found, each of the six
faces is polished more perfectly
than a jeweler can do it. They lie
in veins in the solid rock and after
one Of these veins is opened you
can dig the emeralds out with your
thumb.
Diamonds are found in blue clay,
and rubies and sapphires in gravel,
but emeralds are more fastly guard
ed by nature. Next to the dia-
mond, I believe they are the hard
est of precious stones. The early
Colombia natives used to barter en-
eralds. and the Spaniards later
worked the mines. They did it by
driving tunnels and shafts and it
was by an Indian falling down one
of these ancient workings that the
mines were rediscovered.
A days journey down the noun
tain slope from the mines, Mr.. Rain
ier has a 5,OOO-acre ranch. Here he
raises vegetables. horses and cattle.
/ asked him whether he ever had
imported cattle from the North. He
said he had not. One reason was
that imported cattle might not like
the altitude, and another that only
the native cattle could say on the
mountain slopes. He couldn't even
find a horizontal place for his ranch
house and had to build it on two
levels.
We always are hearing persons
say that to be good bridge
player one must have card sense.
Ely Culbertson never played poker,
or any card game, except bridge.
He declares that card sense is not
essential. In his opinion, what
player needs at bridge is a good
system and a good head.
Some one told me the other day
that Olga Petrova's real name was
Muriel Harding and that she was
British born. They admitted, how
ever, that she had learned to
speak broken English with more
charming accent than a real Rus
sian.
Jenny Dolly of the famous Dolly
sisters now runs a lingerie shop In
Paris, and has an exquisitely fur
nished and beautiful home in that
city.
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