Quartz
- Arthur Chadbourne
- Aug 22, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 17, 2022
Quartz is composed of silicon dioxide, ths same material hard glass is made of; however, quartz rates 7 on the Mohs scale which is much harder than glass. The Mohs scale of hardness is the qualitative method which measures a minerals resistance to abrasion. Atoms of SiO2 linked inside the quartz crystal form a tetrahedron that share an oxygen molecule between them. Hence, any one particular molecule of crystalline quartz has the formula SiO4. The varieties of quartz can be organized by color, as follows: purple amethyst, yellow citrine, blue dumortierite, milky quartz, rosy quartz, brown smoky quartz, and green prasiolite. White blue quartz contains material other than dumortierite; the opaque and transparent smoky quartz can be as dark as black. Aluminum inside the smoky quartz crystal can turn from transparent to translucent when irradiated, so the smoky variety of quartz may be produced in a laboratory.
Because of its durability, quatz has a history of uses both for jewelry as well as for stone carvings. The family of quartz include varieties of semi-precious gemstones because the abundance of quartz crystals is only second to the abundance of feldspar. Durability and abundance makes quartz an ideal gemstone for public display. Quartz crystal has the ideal shape of two prisms terminated at both ends, however, quartz crystals are often found twinned or intergrown with other quartz crystals. Geodes with quartz are typically druse, crystals lining a void.
Today, the term "rock crystal" may be used to refer to clear quartz, while in the past, the ancient greeks used "icey cold" to refer to clear quartz because they believed quartz to be supercooled ice. Amid those who believed in supercooled ice was the writer and philosopher Theophrates, a student of Aristotle. In the 14th century, the German word "Quarz" was derived from the Polish word "kwardy" and the Czech word "tvrdy", meaning "hard". Thus, it's of little surprise that stone quartz carvings were discovered in Eurasia. The Lothair Crystal at the British Museum is a hardstone carving depicting the biblical story of Susanna and dated to 855 AD. The dating for this art came from the inscription LOTHARIVS REX FRANCORVM IVSSIT in referenvce to Lothair II who styled himself as "rex". The Lothair crystal has since been cited as an incidence of Carolingian art.
Quartz crystals have traditional uses in magic and spirit mediation. Some believe thoughts and impressions are stored inside the crystalline lattice and, similar to a mojo bag, every crystal has a personality. The idea that clear quartz can carry-out the desires of the magician shouldn't depend on the form of the quartz crystal because each individual crystal has the same form according to Steno's Law. Thus, in my opinion, clusters of quartz crystals when placed inside a pryamid or at the vertices for magic are the equal of rock crystals at the same locations. Clusters will make a good replacement with this configuration.
Theophrates, as the student of Aristotle, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, the school of philosophy at Athens, Greece. His work, On Stones, was used by lapidaries until the early Renaissance and was relatively free from fable and myth. He knew pearls came from shellfish and spoke of the fossilized remains of organic life. He classified rocks and gems according to reactions after being heated. He even metioned coal as a source of heat for metallurgy.
Nicholas Steno had a short career in science although his work on rock layers and fossils continued to be used by modern geology. He first noticed how shark's teeth resembled glossopetrae found in rocks, Pliny the Elder claimed they fell from the Moon, while at the time contemporary scientists believed they grew in the rock naturally. Steno used the "corpuscular theory of matter" to argue how minerals altered the chemical composition of matter without changing its form.
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