gems, beryl, aquamarine, India

Aquamarine Gems, Ancient and Modern. In Coimbatore, an inland district of the peninsula situated between the Madras and Malabar coasts and overlooked on its northern border by the Nilgiri Mountains, there is a locality long famous for producing the delicate transparent sea-green gem known as aquamarine, or beryl. In the Kangayam Taluk of this district lies the small village of Padiyur (Puddyoor on Sheet 61 of the Great Trigonometrical Survey Map), more commonly called Pattial, about forty miles east of Coimbatore. The surrounding country is a vast undulating plain bounded by the highest mountain ranges of southern India—the Nilgiris, Anamalais, Palanis, and Shevaroys. Both mountains and plain consist chiefly of primary rocks, including gneiss, hornblende schist, granite, and basalt. Dykes and veins of quartz, serpentine, porphyry, and basalt are common and form a characteristic feature of the landscape, with great milk-white masses of quartz often standing out conspicuously or traversing the country in long reefs accompanied by parallel bands of serpentine.