Crystal Quartz

 

 As a crystal, it has a normal geometric arrangement of its structural parts. The process of crystal formation is called crystallization, and we find it everywhere in nature, from common salt in cubic crystals, to diamond with a crystal structure of carbon atoms.

Many mineral crystals with micronutrient compounds in their formation show beautiful shapes and colors, and have been used in the art of jewellery since ancient times, as precious stones, others due to their properties in industrial use such as diamond drills due to their hardness, or quartz crystals, in extremely accurate timers.

Usually in jewellery art when we say crystal quartz, we mean the colorless crystal, a transparent monocrystalline form of quartz that in its natural form, shows the phenomenon of double refraction. Due to the ability of quartz to pulsate at a constant frequency when it is passed through an electric current, (32,768 cycles / sec.) quartz was used in watchmaking to make moving parts of quartz watches. Today it is used in timers and electronic timing circuits.

Greeks, Romans, the peoples of pre-Columbian America, believed that it was solidified water. Romans, due to the lower temperature of the rock than the ambient temperature, had in their hands spheres of crystal quartz to cool the hot days of summer.

Crystal quartz is one of the first stones that primitive peoples attributed to magic or supernatural powers. Even today we have alive the image of the magic crystal ball, which "reads" the future. In America, in China, and even in medieval Europe, mountain crystals, another name of the colorless crystal quartz, were placed in the tombs of loved ones for safe passage to the World of spirits. In India the merchant class created jewellery made of mountain crystal, to protect the family from demons and evil spirits. They used it in cooking utensils, because they believed that quartz darkens when food is spoiled, or when there is poison.