Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

When the water came out the next day, Liang En and the others swam to the spot predicted the day before and started digging. As soon as they dug out a small pit of twenty to thirty centimeters, Jeanne's hand hit a hard object. .

"There seems to be something down here." After discovering that something was wrong, Jeanne swam in front of Liang En, and then told Liang En what she had discovered through mask-to-mask sound transmission.

"I can guarantee that this is definitely not a stone from the seabed itself, because there are no stones larger than the size of a fist on this seabed. It is most likely something brought on the ship."

"Let me see." After hearing what Jeanne said, Liang En immediately swam over and checked. Although they couldn't see clearly because of the bottom of the sea, they could still tell that it was a stone the size of a gas tank.

However, unlike ordinary stones, this stone is not very smooth. It can be seen with the naked eye that there are seven or eight crystal pillars, and it looks like a rough stone of some kind of mineral.

"This thing is an emerald -" Liang En showed a shocked expression after turning on the waterproof flashlight he carried and shining a light on the stone.

Even though he had cards and mastered powers that normal people would never be able to master, he was still extremely shocked when he saw those emerald crystal pillars that were about the same size as his forearm.

Emerald, a gemstone of stunning color. It is the birthstone of May, symbolizing hope, happiness and the vitality of all things that revive in spring. Europe has always liked emerald and designated it as one of the five major gemstones.

Its name comes from the ancient Greek word "smaragdus" (green). In the book "Natural History" written by Pliny the Elder in Rome in the first century AD, he once described emerald, "... nothing is greener than it."

However, the first people to use emerald were not Europeans. As early as four thousand years ago, the ancient Egyptians regarded emeralds as a symbol of eternal life and often embedded them in scarab-shaped amulets, hoping to bring good luck to the wearer and protect them from evil.

Indians worship emeralds very much. They believe that emeralds can bring good luck to the wearer and make them happy. Ordinary people are proud to own an emerald. The royal family even has a large collection of priceless emerald treasures.

Before the 16th century, Egypt was the only known source of emeralds. It was not until the mid-16th century that Spanish colonists discovered that the Incas in South America had a large number of more fascinating emeralds.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish transported a large amount of plundered precious emeralds back to Europe, and emeralds fascinated countless Europeans with their unique and charming style.

For a long time, European princes and nobles competed to wear South American emerald jewelry, thinking it was fashionable. The emeralds held by Indians were basically imported from Europeans in this era.

Predatory mining by the Spanish continued until 1886, when the mines were taken over by the independent Republic of Gran Colombia.

Then the mine was transferred to the Republic of New Granada, the Federation of Nine Provinces of Colombia, the United States of Colombia until today's Republic of Colombia.

Today, Colombia is the world's largest producer of high-quality emeralds, almost monopolizing the international market, accounting for 80% of the world's total production of high-quality emeralds. The emeralds produced in Colombia are world-famous for their good color, texture, and large output.

Under normal circumstances, emeralds are excavated and taken out from calcite-nanofelds veins in sedimentary rock systems, leaving only emerald columnar crystals with an average length of two to three centimeters for transportation.

It's just that this piece of emerald ore is too big, so the colony at that time may have planned to present this piece of ore to the king as a rare treasure.

Because the material of emerald is very brittle and cracked, most of the ores produced in Colombia's most famous Muzo mining area can only be polished into gemstones of less than 0.5 carats, and those that can be polished to more than 2 carats are rare.

At least half of the emerald crystal pillars on the ore in front of Liang En now exceed 10,000 carats. It is no wonder that they were selected as gifts to the king by the colonial nobles at that time.

After using the air bag to float the stone to the surface, they quickly put the stone on the cart using the crane behind the ship with Fan Meng's help. Then they avoided other people and put the stone into the place where Liang En currently lives. in the captain's cabin.

Liang En knew that it was best not to test human nature, so he arranged this secret transportation channel before he entered the water to prevent other people on the ship from having inappropriate thoughts after seeing it.

The weight of this piece of ore is about 380kg. There are seven large emerald crystal pillars on it and densely packed small emerald crystals on the side.

These crystals all show a bright green color that looks very pleasant under the sunlight shining through the portholes. At the same time, the inclusions and cracks are almost invisible to the naked eye from above.

Emeralds are graded from two perspectives: color and purity. The highest grade is called brilliant green, which is the highest grade of emerald color.

This color is the darkest among all emerald greens that can avoid opacity or over-coloration, and the brilliance of this type of emerald is excellent.

Next is bright green. Emeralds with bright green are slightly lighter in color than bright green. However, considering that the highest grade green emeralds are relatively rare, this second-level emerald color is also extremely popular.

The next level deeper is dark, a deep green color, but due to color saturation, this color is usually more vivid than bright green. This color is still quite rare and popular.

Next is medium blue. This kind of emerald gives people a good visual experience, the color is neither dark nor light, and it has good brightness. The saturation of this color emerald ranges from 50% to 70%.

After that comes the next-lowest soft green, which is slightly lighter than medium green and has a saturation between 20% and 40%. As for emeralds of a lower grade than soft green, they can only be used as specimens and have little value.

In addition to color grading, there is also clarity grading: the clarity of emeralds is determined by the naked eye, which is completely different from other gem identifications that require the use of a ten-fold magnifying glass.

Because the impurities contained in emeralds are generally more obvious than diamonds, there is no need to use a high-power magnifying glass to observe. There is no obvious difference in price between an emerald recognized as pure by the naked eye and an emerald recognized as pure under a 10x magnifying glass.

At the same time, for other gemstones, color, clarity, weight and cut have almost the same impact on price, but emerald color has a significantly greater impact on price than clarity.

Therefore, in the emerald grading system, the clarity grading is relatively simple: the highest level is flawless (FL/IF), which means that it is 100% free of impurities under the naked eyes of a professional jeweler or expert. Of course, Liang En’s enhanced eyesight is also Calculate.

The second level is extremely fine impurities (VVS). Non-professionals cannot see any flaws, but professional jewelers or experts can observe very subtle impurities.

The third level is very fine impurities (VS). Non-professionals can detect very fine impurities under careful observation.

The fourth level is fine impurities (SI). Non-professionals can detect subtle impurities under careful observation, but they do not affect the color and brightness of the emerald.

The last level is Impurity (I). The impurities are obvious and affect the color and vividness of the emerald.

In addition, there is another special thing that is oil. Because emeralds are often flawless and cracked, oil immersion is throughout the entire process from mining to sales. After miners dig out emeralds, they will be immersed in oil. Of course, now There is also a method of resin filling.

Although I don’t know how ancient people did it, I can be sure that after soaking in water for hundreds of years, no matter how much oil was soaked in it, it should no longer exist now.

The emerald Liang En found this time was bright green, flawless and oil-free. It was the best emerald no matter what. It can even be called a rare treasure, so what to do with it next becomes a big problem.