Smithsonian Handbooks: Gemstones Author: Visit Amazon's Cally Hall Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0789489856 | Format: PDF
Smithsonian Handbooks: Gemstones Description
- Series: Smithsonian Handbooks
- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: DK ADULT; 2 edition (May 15, 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0789489856
- ISBN-13: 978-0789489852
- Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I fear that I am a bit of a magpie. I like shiny sparkly things, and the usual response is Ooooh! Shiny! And as a young one, when taken on various trips, I started to take an interest in rockhounding and geology. It was finding gemstones that were the real fun, seeing these little bits of glittery rock that turned out to be sapphires or amethysts or garnets. Life would take me in different directions, but the interest in pretty, glittery rocks has remained.
Smithsonian Handbooks: Gemstones is one of those lovely little books that is crammed full of information and pictures, along some folklore and bits of trivia that add to the mystique of gemstones. Compiled by Cally Hall, it's a very readable book, filled with more than 800 photographs, with a text that while it is slanted towards scientific terms, is very readable and accessable.
The first section of the book is an extended introduction to what makes a gemstone different than say, a mineral, although they might be composed of the same chemicals. A brief history of how gemstones and precious metals (silver, gold and platinum) have been shaped, worn and coveted. One section that I found very intesting was the explaination of the Mohs scale used to determined hardness -- it ranges from 1 to 10, with talc at the bottom, and diamond at the top, and how a stone is determined to fit in along the scale. Another fascinating section is how light and crystallization help to determine gemstones, and what part they play in how a stone is shaped and graded. There is also a section on synthetic gemstones and how they have been created over the centuries, and how the colour of stones can be changed by irradiation, heating and staining the stones.
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