![]() Set among the marble sculptures that comprised the fountain were hundreds of the brilliant green garnets called peridots, which gave the square its name. It is built of marble and copper tubing, of sculptured alabaster and peridots the size of my shell. The handful of wealthier islanders presented gifts of pearl necklaces, bracelets, and girdles studded with garnets, peridots, and zeolite crystals and containers covered in shagreen.Īt his throat the eyes of the slender serpent glared, twin peridots, coldly insulted by humanity. The nictating membranes of the third eyelid retracted so that his eyes were fully open and bright as the highest caliber peridots. ![]() The malachite green sea merged with the peridot green water flowing through the channel of the large lagoon that nestled between the volcanic lava cliffs of Raoul Island. While media publicity was kept to a minimum, people whose job it was to know such things knew overnight that a bomb had been stolen, and that the thieves had in all likelihood been members of the Peridot Gang. The different shades of green in tourmaline, emerald, peridot and demantoid garnet, that wonderful apricot color of imperial topaz. Garnets, pale green peridots, topazes in all the golden-brown variations, aquamarines and amethysts and pink beryls (morganite) jostled one another in seemingly random confusion.Įmeralds cut and in matrix, tsavorite cut and in matrix, peridot and diopside and corundum, topaz and diamonds scintillating. So did he take fruit of every color, never suspecting that the red ones might be rubies, carbuncles, hyacinths, corals, or camelians, nor the white ones diamonds, pearls, nacre, or moonstones, nor the green ones emeralds, beryls, jade, prase, or aquamarine, not to mention those many varieties of blue, violet, yellow, and various unknown colors and the fact that they might be sapphires, lapis, turquoise, amethysts, jaspers, topaz, amber, agates, opals, hematite, tourmaline, peridot, and chrysoprase. Usually, dyes are applied, but sometimes reconstituted material is sold as natural to unwitting rockhounds.There were garnet-red cherries, peridot grapes, apples like great rubies streaked with gold and amber, amethyst blueberries, strawberries glowing like pink charcoal, yellow pears of topaz, lucid gooseberries of translucent green quartz, quinces still on their twigs, melons, pomegranates, polished damsons, figs like blushing drops of jade. Lapis is actually rather expensive when high-grade so there’s a lot done to imitate that. Modern geopolitics and a long history of mining make the good stuff a bit more scarce than in the past. A lot of the best lapis lazuli is held in locations like Afghanistan. These days it’s a bit harder to find, especially when there’s a lot of conflict in the Middle East. The classic use of lapis by the Egyptians shows what can be done with this stone. It’s one of the few “gem” materials that can massively change composition from stone to stone. Lapis is a deep blue, often flecked with golden pyrite and sometimes with white pieces of limestone matrix or calcite. One of the most ancient stones still in common use.
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