Gems - wide group natural stones, predominantly of crystalline nature. There are about 4 thousand names of minerals of various degrees of hardness and wear resistance in the world: transparent, opaque, painted in monochromatic colors or with a pattern, matt or shiny surface, etc. Only 100 of them, or a little more safely, can be called gems.


By different classifications they often include transparent stones, and opaque minerals, rocks are classified as "colored stones".

There are many legends and incredible facts about gems, which are just as interesting to learn as it is to admire the iridescent faces of a transparent regal diamond, pale blue aquamarine, blood red ruby ​​or hyacinth.

A diamond the size of the moon

Diamond is the king of gems and the hardest gem. The largest diamonds on Earth are considered "Cullinan I" or "Great Star of Africa" ​​( 530.2 ct), "Cullinan II", "Century" and others: "Star of Yakutia", "Orlov". But there are much larger examples in the universe.


So, astronomer Travis Metcalfe in 2004 discovered the diamond planet of the constellation Centaurus. It is difficult to imagine the size and value of a space gem - it is about 10 billion trillion kara The object was named "Lucy" by analogy with the Beatles hit "Lucy in the Heaven with Diamonds".

Gems used to be used as tools

In their natural state, without cutting and polishing, even diamonds, emeralds and rubies look unpresentable. But one of the main differences between precious stones is their hardness. Diamonds, rubies, chrysoberyl, sapphires are highly resistant to wear.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the ancient people used gems for domestic purposes, and in China, diamonds were used to grind ritual axes. But even today, about 80% of mined diamonds are used for industrial purposes.

Alexandrite - a chameleon stone

Alexandrite, named after Alexander II, was officially discovered in the Urals at the beginning of the 19th century. But its ability to change color in daytime and evening lighting has been known for a long time. It is no coincidence that in the East it was called "iridescent". Other gems also have this property to some extent. So, aquamarine brightens a little in the sun, and chrysolite loses its yellowness in the evening light.

The healing properties of gems - myth or reality?

Since ancient times, it was believed that minerals have the ability to heal diseases, bring good luck and money, and attract love to their owner. For example, they believed that they were endowed with such magical qualities:

• Carbuncle.
• Chrysolite.
• Coral.
• Pearl.
• Amethyst.
• Garnet.
• Agate.
• Sardonyx.
• Topaz.
• Turquoise.
• Sapphire and other stones.

And now the properties of gems are correlated with the signs of the Zodiac and it is recommended to carry “your” stone with you. According to V. Dahl's testimony, it is known that A.S. Pushkin considered his emerald ring a talisman bestowing talent. But there is no scientific evidence for the healing power of stones. But in folk medicine, lithotherapy is still widely used.

Non-crystalline (amorphous) gems

Mostly gems are of a crystalline nature, but there are also non-crystalline stones. Camorphic minerals include opal and obsidian. Opal is an exception in the gem family. It is brittle and soft due to its chemical structure, but creates a bizarre play of color when exposed to the sun. This quality is called opalescence.

Asterism - natural "star-like" gems

Some minerals have a special decorative effect - from different angles of view and when the gem is moved, a star of 3, 4 or more rays is visible in it (up to 12 rays in rubies). The nature of this phenomenon is associated with the fact that crystals often contain inclusions of other crystals. Light, refracting in them in a special way, creates a star pattern that can be observed in corundum, ruby, beryl, emerald, aquamarine, sapphire, heliodor, diopside. Artificially grown stones can also be given this effect by means of various inclusions in their production.

Only 1 in 1000 natural rubies

According to statistics, there is only 1 natural stone per 1000 artificial rubies, and for the first time yagont was synthesized in 1837.
In addition, a layman can confuse real rubies, for example, with sagatami.

• Diamonds are cut diamonds.
• Ruby and sapphire are variations of colorless corundum, and emeralds are a variety of beryl (the color of gems depends on impurities of titanium, chromium, iron).
• Warm reds, oranges and brown stones are much more common than cold ones.

Gemstones are quite complex in structure, with the exception of diamond. It is based on only one chemical element - carbon. But 9/10 of all mined diamonds go to production needs, and only 1/10 reaches jewelers and then consumers.

Gemstones are measured in carats. These units originated from carob seeds, ideally similar to each other in size and shape. The weight of such a seed - 0.2 grams - was called a carat. This unit of measurement existed in the ancient world and has survived to this day. (Table for converting carats to grams)

To get just one carat of emerald, about 20 tons of soil are dug in the mines in Colombia.

Emerald can be not only green, but also red. This type of gem is called bixbit. Its deposit has so far been found only in one place on the planet - in the state of Utah.

Sapphire is usually represented as a stone saturated of blue color... In fact, purple, pink, orange, yellow and even green sapphires are found in nature, which are collectively called "fantasy". The only color that this stone is inaccessible is red. Sapphires were highly appreciated by Boris Godunov. He considered them magical, with many useful properties.

Ruby is a gemstone of deep scarlet color, found almost everywhere. The only continent where its deposits have not been discovered is Antarctica. Traditionally, these stones are exported from Thailand, Tajikistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Tanzania. Rubies from Asia are considered to be of the highest quality and, accordingly, the most expensive.

Ruby is considered a royal stone for a reason. He was worshiped by many historical figures. Cleopatra, Cardinal Richelieu, Mary Stuart and Marie de Medici had their own collections of rubies. And our contemporary - British Queen Elizabeth II - in 1973 ordered a luxurious ruby ​​tiara to the court jewelers. The jewelry was made from stones given to her by the Burmese as a wedding gift.

1. Today more than 4 thousand minerals are known. Every year, several dozen new mineral species are discovered and several are “closed” - they prove that such a mineral does not exist.

2. All gems are mined by hand.

3. On average, one carat of emerald mined in Colombia accounts for 20 tons of processed soil.

4. Diamond is the only one of all gemstones that consists of one chemical element - carbon.

5. The amount of minerals is constantly decreasing, so the price of jewelry will always rise.

6. There is a special pomegranate (ant) deposits of which can be found only near anthills. Crystals of this mineral are found only near ant nests. When building a nest, insects throw crystals of this mineral to the surface. These ants live in the USA in a place called "4 corners".

7. Many people mistakenly believe that a diamond is only colorless. In fact, any precious mineral can envy the color palette of a diamond. But nowadays, not all colored diamonds have a natural color. Many stones are artificially colored. This is due to their rarity.

8. Before the invention of the Mohs scale (mineralogical scale of hardness), stones were determined by color. So all green stones became emeralds, red ones - rubies, etc.

9. A real emerald is more expensive than a diamond.

10.95% of all rubies are artificially refined. Only truly large and perfectly beautiful stones can avoid such a fate.

11. Ruby and sapphire are one and the same. The difference between these stones is only in color.

12. 90% of all mined diamonds are used for industrial purposes, and only 10% ends up on jewelry counters.

13. Alexandrite was named after Tsarevich Alexander, the future Emperor Alexander II.

14. Aquamarine and emerald are one and the same, just an admixture of different chemical elements gives different colours... Chromium makes the emerald green, and aluminum turns aquamarine blue.

15. Topaz has a bad habit of fading and discoloration in the sun. Therefore, jewelry containing this mineral is not recommended to be worn on the beach.

16. There is a "red emerald". It is actually a red variety of beryl, Bixbit. It is an extremely rare mineral and is found only in Utah (USA).

17. Pink topaz is the rarest colored variety of this mineral. It is pink topaz that is most often counterfeited.

18. Some minerals are very dangerous. For example, charoite may turn out to be "mini-Chernobyl", and cinnabar "broken by a mercury thermometer."

19. Almost all emeralds have cracks and inclusions (according to various sources, 90–95%). But this does not reduce their cost, because the mineral is assessed by color and saturation.

20. Kremlin stars are made of ruby ​​glass.

Friendship, like anything valuable, requires delicacy © Da "en

Interesting Facts about stones and minerals.

Did you know that ...

The main chemical element of precious stones is oxygen.

Stones are born, grow and die. The life of most of them lasts a very long time, millions of years. The stone, unlike living organisms, in favorable conditions remains unchanged for a very, very long time. He seems to be hibernating.

One of the world's largest (if not the largest) aquamarine crystal was discovered in 1910 in the Marambani field near the Mukuri River in Brazil. Its length is 48.3 cm and 41 cm in diameter. Its weight was 110.2 kg.

The largest diamond was discovered in South Africa in 1905. His name is Cullinan. Its weight was 3106 carats. The Cullinan was sawn; it turned out 105 diamonds; the two largest adorned the royal scepter and the imperial crown of Great Britain.

On average, to mine 1 kg of diamonds, roughly 20 million times the amount of rock has to be processed.

In Kazakhstan, a rock crystal crystal was found with a two-story house, its weight is 70 tons.

Rhinestone crystals let in the sun's ultraviolet rays, which are reflected by regular glass.

The finest red corals have been found in the Mediterranean for a long time.

Japanese and American doctors have concluded that treated white corals can be successfully used in surgery. White corals grow together with the bones of the human skeleton almost seamlessly.

One of the most remarkable sapphires is kept in the Diamond Fund of Russia and belongs to the royal regalia; he has oval shape, sonorous cornflower blue color, weight 258 carats, diameter from 3.4 to 3.9 cm and height 2.2 cm.

A large sapphire, according to the newspapers (more than 3.5 thousand carats!), Was found in the US state of North Carolina in 1988 by one lover of stones in an abandoned adit, who mistook it for rhinestone and used it as a decoration on his desktop. Erasing the plaque from the stone, its owner drew attention to the emerging deep sky-blue color and, having shown his find to a specialist, learned that it was a sapphire worth several million dollars.

A diamond is attractive not only for the eyes, but also for specialists who imitate jewelry. The most suitable for this purpose is zircon, which becomes transparent after calcination. It also has a play of light and looks difficult to distinguish from a diamond. Gives the "impostor" a lower hardness.

The richest diamond deposits are in Africa. In Russia, Yakutia is famous for them.

Treatment with precious stones is called lithotherapy.

In Japan, tablets made from powdered pearls are sold for medicinal purposes.

You can only grind and cut a diamond with a diamond.

The most significant yet infamous pipe of the Kimberley (diamond mine) mine in South Africa was mined in 1871-1908. manually, without any mechanization !!! There arose the largest hole ever dug by human hands: 460 m across (on the surface) and 1070 m deep; now it is half flooded with groundwater. In total, 14.5 million carats of diamonds (almost 3 tons) were mined from it. In the end, the development had to be stopped due to the too low productivity of the mine.

Numerous rubies adorn royal regalia and ancient heirlooms. However, as a result of the latest research, very many of them have been "exposed" and turned out to be red spinel. Among them are the "Ruby of the Black Prince" in the British crown and "Ruby of Timur" in the breast chain, which also belongs to the jewels of the English crown. The drop-shaped spinels of the Wittelsbach crown, made in 1830, have also long been considered rubies.

The most appreciated are cornflower blue sapphires of pure water.

Kashmir sapphires (India) are valued more than others. Deposits there are located at an altitude of 5000 m (Zanskar ridge in the Himalayas), 200 km southeast of Srinagar.

In the old days in Russia, in order to cleanse pearls, they were allowed to peck at a chicken. Then the chicken was cut and the pearls were taken out of the stomach.

In Russia, where more than 150 pearl-bearing rivers were known, pearl fishing has existed for a long time. Mainly, these were the rivers of the northwestern part of Russia, although ancient manuscripts mention its production in Kievan Rus. Hence the abundance of pearl embroidery on dresses, not only for women, but also for men.

Natural black pearls were first made famous in Europe by Hernando Cortez (1458-1547), the Spanish conquistador and conqueror of Mexico, and later by research on the "colored pearls" found in the Gulf of California. La Paz in Baia, California has become a worldwide center for black pearls.

Very rarely, two or more pearls grow together. The most notable example of such a phenomenon is the "Grand Southern Cross" pearl. When the hunters opened the shell, they found that as many as nine pearls had grown together in the form of a cross.

According to many archaeologists, it was pearls that became the first jewel that attracted a semi-wild man not so much for its practical benefits, but for its aesthetic perfection. Since it was not so easy to get a strange ball, silvery in the rays of the sun, it almost immediately became appreciated.

The word "pearl" came to Russia from China. It was formed from the Chinese "zhen-zhu" through the old Russian "zenchug".

It is assumed that the growth of pearls occurs in layers, like the annual rings of trees. The deposition rate of mother-of-pearl decreases over time, initially amounting to about 2 mm per year.

Pearls with a perfectly round shape are most highly valued.

The unit of weight for pearls is the "pearl grain", which is a quarter of a carat or 50 mg (0.05 g).

In the first half of the 20th century, the mass of cultured Japanese pearls led to a significant decrease in the price of this gem.

Today, scientists know about 4 thousand types of minerals, every year dozens of new types are discovered, as well as a few are "closed" every year.

Each mineral is mined by hand to maintain its integrity.

Diamond is the only precious mineral that contains only carbon.

In Colombia, one carat of emerald mined accounts for about 20 tons of processed soil.

The amount of precious minerals is decreasing, therefore the price for them will constantly increase.

Ant Garnet (precious mineral), can only be found near ant hills. The fact is that ants push it to the surface when building a nest. There is a whole farm in the USA called "4 Corners".

The diamond has the most different color palette, but its real color is a transparent and colorless mineral, most often it is simply painted in the required color.

A natural emerald is several times more expensive than a diamond.

Ruby and sapphire are one and the same mineral, they differ only in color palette.

About 90% of all diamonds are used for industrial purposes, and only 10% of them will end up in jewelry stores.

The valuable mineral alexandrite was named after Tsar Alexander II.

Emerald and aquamarine are the same mineral [beryl], they differ only in color, chromium gives emerald a light green color, and aluminum makes aquamarine bluish.

"Red Emerald" is mined only in one place on the planet, namely in the state of Utah in the USA, therefore it is a very rare and expensive mineral.

There are also minerals dangerous to humans, for example, charoite, which is radioactive, or cinnabar, with which a broken mercury thermometer can be compared.

All emeralds are cracked, but this does not change their value, as they are judged by color and saturation.

The most beautiful alexandrites, inexpensively purchased during the Soviet era, almost did not add to the price even in our not cheap time. The fact is that only natural alexandrite is dear - and in the Soviet Union only artificial alexandrite was sold through the state jewelry trade network. It should be noted that in the last century, the development of natural alexandrite was carried out only on the territory of Russia ...

Hematite, the jewelry varieties of which amaze with austere beauty, is a very widespread and, moreover, rapidly renewable mineral. Being an iron ore, hematite often comes out to the surface of the Earth together with magmatic masses. Cases of occurrence of hematite deposits at the site of volcanic eruptions have been noted. The most interesting thing is that it took a few days for the formation of the mineral layers.

Gold nuggets are usually small. However, during the Gold Rush in California, a nugget weighing almost 90 kg was found! At current prices, this piece of metal would be valued at $ 5 million.

Annual gold production is more than thirteen times that of platinum. If almost 2000 tons of gold are extracted from the bowels of the planet every year, then platinum cannot be mined even 150 tons. To obtain thirty grams of platinum (ounce), ten tons of ore must be processed. The high value of platinum is underlined by the respectful attitude of the jewelry community. The largest diamonds (including those that are a national treasure) are set in platinum.

In the Mughal Empire, the most valuable gem was considered to be an emerald. The fashion for emeralds lasted more than two hundred years. It was the demand for cut emeralds that gave rise to the Jaipur stone cutting business. The traditions of ancient carvers and cutters are still alive today: the Amrapali company in Jaipur produces products that are consonant with the jewelry of antiquity. As in the past, Amrapali craftsmen carve outlandish and stylish flowers on the edges of emeralds and rubies.

Rutile quartz is famous for its needle-thin rutile crystals that pierce the quartz mass in different directions. Rutile itself is titanium oxide TiO2. On an industrial scale, rutile is mined as a valuable metal ore. However, its intergrowths with quartz are the most valuable jewelry material. In appearance, the rutile crystals in quartz resemble gold.

Ametrine is a rare stone. Its main feature is the natural combination in one crystal of two jewels, amethyst and citrine. The distribution of color predominance in ametrine is so individual that two similar ametrines simply cannot be found.

Platinum jewelry on the world jewelry market is fifty times less than gold jewelry. The rarity of platinum jewelry is due, among other things, to the difficulty of processing the noble metal. Refractory and heavy, it reluctantly succumbs to the efforts of craftsmen. But the finished platinum product is weighty and solid: the density of platinum is 60% higher than that of gold. This is why platinum earrings are never big.

One of the rarest and most expensive gems is the blue garnet. Not so long ago, a blue garnet weighing less than five carats was sold for almost seven million dollars! Vanadium makes pomegranates blue. Depending on the concentration of the metal in the crystals, the color of garnet can vary from blue-green to deep purple.

Fibrous jade is extremely durable. Certain types of stone are crushed under powerful blows, but they do not lose their integrity. There is a known case when they tried to split a jade block with a steam hammer. After several attempts, the anvil failed, but the stone was not damaged. Even inexpensive jade rings are nearly impossible to accidentally break.