History and Mystery of Precious Stones PDF Download

Author: William Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gems
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Author: William Jones (F.S.A.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gems
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198187721
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Here is a collection of this witty and irreverent author's works--all in their most authoritative texts. Includes The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, and other stories and essays.

Author: Kennie Lyman
Publisher: Touchstone
ISBN: 9780671604301
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Simon & Schuster's Guide to Gems and Precious Stones provides both the connoisseur and the casual collector with a compact, easy-to-use volume describing more than 100 rare varieties of minerals whose beauty and mystery have possessed our imaginations from time immemorial. More than 450 brilliant photographs accompany profiles of each gem, covering such aspects as appearance, physical properties -- density, hardness, refraction -- occurrence, and how to judge quality and value. Additional sections describe the process of cutting gemstones and the techniques professional gemologists use to evaluate a stone's weight and optical properties. Detailed and comprehensive, this book is essential for anyone interested in the study of gems and precious stones.

Author: Victoria Finlay
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345493354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. With the same intense curiosity and narrative flair she displayed in her widely-praised book Color, Finlay journeys from the underground opal churches of outback Australia to the once pearl-rich rivers of Scotland; from the peridot mines on an Apache reservation in Arizona to the remote ruby mines in the mountains of northern Burma. She risks confronting scorpions to crawl through Cleopatra’s long-deserted emerald mines, tries her hand at gem cutting in the dusty Sri Lankan city where Marco Polo bartered for sapphires, and investigates a rumor that fifty years ago most of the world’s amber was mined by prisoners in a Soviet gulag. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth’s mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power, and wealth. From the fabled curse of the Hope Diamond, to the disturbing truths about how pearls are cultured, to the peasants who were once executed for carrying amber to the centuries-old quest by magicians and scientists to make a perfect diamond, Jewels tells dazzling stories with a wonderment and brilliance truly worthy of its subjects.

Author: Salem Public Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Author: Charles Frederick Tweney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Best books
Languages : en
Pages : 936

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Author: George Frederick Kunz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gems
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Author: Julius Wodiska
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Precious stones
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Author: Birmingham Free Libraries. Reference Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dictionary catalogs
Languages : en
Pages : 1638

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Book Description