QUARTZ (clear)

OK, I was experimenting with my photography, like the experts do!!
Sorry you have to endure a quadruple-sized finger! Ilk!

Quartz is the most common mineral on the face of the Earth. It is found in nearly every geological environment and is at least a component of almost every rock type. It frequently is the primary mineral, >98%. It is also the most varied in terms of varieties, colours and forms. This variety comes about because of the abundance and widespread distribution of quartz. A collector could easily have hundreds of quartz specimens and not have two that are the same due to the many broad catagories. The specimens could be separated by answers to the following questions: colour?, shade?, pyramidal?, prismatic?, druzy?, twinned?, sceptred?, tapered?, phantomed?, inclusions?, coated?, microcrystalline?, stalactitic?, concretionary?, geoidal?, tappered?, banded?, etc. Multiple combinations of these could produce hundreds of unique possibilities.

Hardness: 7. Other characteristics.

Cluster from the State of Minas Gerais, in Brazil (affectionally known as the "Roth Diamond")

Quartz Chloriteaux, Le Rouchon, St Veran, Htes Alpes, France

(from Brazil)	A happy bunch of crystals from Brazil
from Arkansas.	Another one! You can never have too much quartz!!!

Perhaps the most popular of all stones. It purified the air and the body, cleansing the system and clearing the mind. Healing: vertigo, dizziness.

From the Aberdeen Bestiary Project

Crystal when ground and drunk in water restores milk to a woman who has lost it. Note that hot goat's blood dissolves a diamond. :S