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Ch. 9: Tourmaline

Ch. 8: Beryl: Aquamarine Page of 111 Ch. 9: Tourmaline Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
The Tourmaline
Tourmaline is like beryl, a mineral which is in itself of great interest, especially to scientists, and one which in smaller crystals sometimes attains such beauty of coloring and brilliancy as to become of rare charm as a gem.
Tourmaline has always puzzled scientific authorities in determining its composition, and in lack of a concise or authoritative definition of the chemicals composing it, we will quote the following description of its composition given by Ruskin, in his "Ethics of the Dust": "A little of everything, there's always flint and clay and magnesia in it; and the black is iron according to its fancy; and there's boracic acid, if you know what that is, and if you don't, I cannot tell you today, and it doesn't signify, and there's potash and soda; and on the whole, the chemistry of it is more like a medieval doctor's prescription than the making of a respectable mineral."
As we noted at first, tourmaline as a mineral is quite distinct from its rarer gem species.
Ch. 8: Beryl: Aquamarine Page of 111 Ch. 9: Tourmaline
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