Europe Wedding Fashion Jewellery Collection 1

Europe Fashion Jewellery
By Aamir Mannan.

In some minerals the figures very somewhat; thus in zircon, while the blue, white, and golden 'fried' type most popular in moderan jewellery are almost constant in their birefringence of 0.059. many of the ceyclonese zircons. particularly the green varieties, have a much lower double refractions, sinking in some cases practically to zero. this peculiaity is unique amongst minerals, and will be discussed at greater length in the chapter on zircon. synthetic rutile has been manufactured in the USA (since 1949), and its anormous double refraction will be one means of identification. calcite, though not a gemstone, plays an important part in gemmological instruments in its optocally pure form of 'ice land spar', how, apart from the refractometer, can one test whether a given stone doubly refractive or not? the simplest method of all, which with a little practice is quite easily carried out, is to examine the stone carefully 

with a powerful pocket lens-say giving 8x to 12x magnification. for example, look trougth the table facet of a zircon with a lens, and focus sharply on to the edges of the back facets where they adjoin the culet, and it will be noticed that instead of a single sharp line where the facets join. Colours plays an extermely important part in contributing to the beauty and popularity of precious stones. it was their colour that made such stones as turquoise and lapis lazuli among the first to attract the cupidity of early civilised man, and it is the mangnificent crimson red of ruby, the deep cornflower blue of the finest sapphires and the verdant green of emerald which (added to their transparency, hardness and rarity) have caused them always to rank amongst the supremely precious gems. only in the case of diamond, unique in this as in so many other ways, has a complete lack of colour been  regarded as the standard of perfection. those unversed in gemmology find it hard to realise that is most of the mineral species used as gems a wide colour range is possible, and that in their 'pure' state they would be

colourless and thereby of relatively little value.It has already been stated that each mineral has a definite refractive index by which it can be identified on the refractometer; list of these indices will be found on p. 27, and at the of the post. for the benefit of those who like to have at least a rough idea of the working of an instrument which they are using, a short description of the basic principle upon which all gem-tasting refractometer depend followers. however, those, who would like to know how to use a refractometer, but who prefer to shirk such explanation, can skip the next section and await the strictly practical directions which will be given later, on p.21. what followers can best be understood by considering the diagram, figure 2.2. here rays of light are considered passing from a dense medium into a rarer one, say from glass into air. the rays will then be refracted away from the normal, NOM (the revers process of the former case considered in figure 2.1).