Peter Tandy wrote: > Dear les, and everyone, > > In the Natonal collection of minerals in London, we have a superb QUARTZ > sphere which should make an excellent sunshine recorder, and such spheres > are available on the mineral market, mainly for the 'crystal healing' > brigade. however, being a natural substance, quartz is often shot through > with imperfections, and the possibility of finding a clear one is less > likely (but not impossible). As an aside, we also have a magnificent > CALCITE sphere which has strong double refraction (so two images of an > objecr beneath it are seen. Food for thought.....?????
Now that you've mentioned it, I rember good old days -- how could I have forgoten them? -- when quartz was expensive. My home town has a lot of quartz. During the World Word II many people made a fortune with quartz. In my youth I was told the United States used to import tons and tons of high quality quartz. I still don't why. They certainly did not need that much quartz to build radios :-) But the fact is, by the end of the fifities there was a revival in the quartz mining. A little while after that quartz became so inexpensive that mining it did not pay off anymore. People started making all kind of quartz trinkets. Among them some nice spheres. As of late I don't have seen them very often. Perhaps just because I have not been paying attention. I'll double check next time I go there for a visit. If they still exist, they certainly are vey high quality. As I can remember it, they only used the best quality quartz. Any imperfection would render it useless. By the way, can anyone there confirm if in the forties quartz was more valueable because of the war? If that was the case, why? - fernando PS - There was a variety of prices. crystal-clear quartz was the cheapest. Colored quartz was more expensive, the price depending on the color (bluish, redish, greyish...) - but all of these come from my early childhood, when memory and fantasy are almost the same... -- Fernando Cabral Padrao iX Sistemas Abertos mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pix.com.br mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Fone: +55 61 321-2433 Fax: +55 61 225-3082 15º 45' 04.9" S 47º 49' 58.6" W 19º 37' 57.0" S 45º 17' 13.6" W
