Drag-stones
Since ancient times, gems have been human companions. The tradition of honoring precious stones is rooted in ancient Egypt and Rome. The Egyptians decorated themselves with amethysts, emeralds, turquoise, while the Romans preferred diamonds. The Renaissance epoch brought with it a fashion for topaz, sapphires, rubies, romanticism – a flash of interest in a semiprecious stone. Of course, untreated stone is ugly, but often nature itself processes them – with the help of wind, sand, and water. However, in the middle of the 15th century, the jeweler of the Burgundian duke Ludwig Van Berkem, for the first time, cut the diamond. To this day, gems attract and attract people.
The wearing of precious stones at all times was a sign of status and high prestige. Ballroom dress in the nineteenth century, as indeed now, was considered incomplete and even out of place without an expensive addition: a necklace, earrings, a bracelet on a captivating wrist, or rings on wonderful fingers.
The precious stones include minerals (mainly crystals), colorless or having a beautiful color, bright luster, more or less transparency, high hardness, resistance to wear, high light scattering, purity of color, color uniformity. The value of precious stones is determined by their rarity, as well as the individual qualities of stones – the size, uniformity, degree of transparency for transparent stones, the beauty of color for gems. Large gems are rarely found in nature, which makes them very expensive.
Below we present the most famous representatives of the world of precious stones.
Diamond
DiamondTak called the game of color makes diamond almost the most expensive gem (along with ruby, emerald and blue sapphire, which are quite similar in price to a diamond). A diamond in its natural form is ugly and does not represent artistic value. After a proper cut, which creates conditions for an innumerable set of internal reflections, the diamond begins to play, becomes a work of art. A diamond that has been cut becomes a diamond. The word “Diamond” comes from the Arabic almas, or the Turkish elmas, then through the Arabic from the ancient Greek almas, which translated means “indestructible”.
A diamond is a champion in hardness among minerals, but at the same time it is very fragile, a sharp blow can break a diamond, although gradual pressure will not lead to its destruction. Absolutely colorless diamonds are extremely rare. Often diamonds have any shade, the color of the shade directly depends on the impurity in the composition. Diamonds are known to have bright yellow, blue, orange, brown, green, blue, pink (one of the rarest and most expensive), gray and even black.
Diamond deposits are available on all continents, not yet found only in Antarctica. Diamonds have several types of deposits. For the last few thousand years, diamonds were mined from placer deposits until kimberlite pipes were discovered, and it became clear that diamonds are formed only in them, and not in river sediments. There are several hypotheses about the origin of diamonds. The mantle, meteoric, magmatic, fluid, there are even some quite insane. However, most experts are inclined to magmatic or mantle theories. Carbon atoms under enormous pressure (over 50,000 atmospheres) and at a rather large (according to various estimates about 200 km) form a cubic crystal lattice – in fact, this is diamond. Subsequently, the resulting minerals are carried to the surface of the planet by magma during volcanic eruptions, when so-called “explosion tubes” are formed.
