




![]() | Mouse Diamond: Big Diamond discovery in Guinea. Well call it luck or a gateway to adversity. A young miner scourging the West African forests of Guinea stumbled upon a 182 carat stone. Four times the size of the famous Hope Diamond, these staggering figures would have made any person proud of his discovery. But far from taking pride in his discovery our young 25 year old miner has gone into hiding. |
Reason: Everyone within close proximity of the stone starting with the Government of Guinea to the local traders and masses wants their pound of flesh. This resulted in the Diamond being tucked away deep in the vaults of Guinea's Central Bank. No Pictures and No Comments were the one liners used by everyone. |
Mining Industry officials confirmed that though the newly dug stone was not flawless, it was well worth a fortune in its rough state. Guinea's biggest Diamond operators Aredor mining company say that the find is worth millions of dollars. Roughly shaped in a form similar to a computer mouse the Guinea gem is 10 cm from tip to tip on its longest side and 3 cm wide. Compared to this gem the famed Hope Diamond stands at a mere 45.52 carats. | ![]() |
![]() | Discussing on condition of anonymity, officials and diplomats disclosed that the miner struck his shovel on the stone at a dig in southeast Guinea, bordering Ivory Coast and Liberia. It was clear however that the stone did not stay for long in the hands of the finder. It soon found its way in no time to the capital, Conakry, where it was kept behind steel doors at the guarded Central Bank. "The finder had no choice but to hand it over. Fearing his life" said a western diplomat stationed in the capital. Most people are reluctant to give the whereabouts of the young miner. |
Rubies are made up of the mineral corundum. Corundum is aluminum oxide ( Al2O3). A ruby forms when there is a small impurity of chromic oxide in the corundum (an aluminium oxide in which some of the aluminum ions have been substituted by chromium). This substitution process is called an isomorphous replacement. Chromium and vanadium, another metal constituent of rubies, provide the fiery red color of the crystal. If the stone formed in the corundum is not red, it is a sapphire, although the name is commonly associated with only blue stones.
Example of Corundum
Another name for Corundum is Emery. On Mohs Scale of Hardness, Corundum is a 9, just under diamonds (10).
Ruby crystals form at high temperatures, between 620 and 670°C. They appear to be the features of distal hydrothermal reactions with marble. "They are formed mainly in high-grade metamorphic environments where hydrothermal fluids meet limestone," (Waltham, 1999, p. 144). When there are rutile inclusions present in cabochons, there is a star effect.
Star Effect
Rubies can also be created in a laboratory, using two different methods: Flame-Fusion and Flux-Growth.
The cheapest method of producing synthetic rubies is the flame-fusion process. The chemicals are melted and dripped onto a boule. The melt then crystallizes within a matter of hours. The result is an unnatural, glassy stone with curved growth plates. Instead of inclusions, flame-fusion rubies have tiny gas bubbles. They cost $1-4 per carat. Such a ruby is often used in costume jewelry.
Trillion Cut Ruby
The flux-growth method involves dissolving the chemicals into a molten mixture, called a flux. The gem is inserted into the flux, and it crystallizes under controlled-pressure conditions. It takes up to six months for the crystal to form. The growth planes are straight, making the crystal structure look more like a natural ruby. Often flux-growth rubies have inclusions which only skilled gemologists can decipher from natural ruby inclusions. Flux-growth rubies can range in cost from $100-500 per carat. Because these rubies look so real and are much more affordable, many people buy them... but no geologist ever would!
Literature Cited
If you’re reading this, there is at least a small part in you that doesn’t want to die. Listen to it, and please read on.
The cancan first appeared in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse in Paris in around 1830. It was a more lively version of the galop, a dance in quick 2/4 time, which often featured as the final figure in the quadrille. The cancan was, therefore, originally a dance for couples, who indulged in high kicks and other gestures with arms and legs. It is thought that they were influenced by the antics of a popular entertainer of the 1820s, Charles Mazurier, who was well known for his acrobatic performances, which included the grand écart or jump splits—later a popular feature of the cancan. At this time, and throughout most of the 19th century in France, the dance was also known as the chahut. Both words are French, cancan meaning "tittle-tattle" or "scandal", hence a scandalous dance, while chahut meant "noise" or "uproar". The dance did cause something of a scandal, and for a while, there were attempts to repress it. Occasionally people dancing the cancan were arrested but it was never officially banned, as is sometimes claimed. Throughout the 1830s, it was often groups of men, particularly students, who caused the most outrage by dancing the cancan at public dance-halls.
As performers of the cancan became more skilled and adventurous, it gradually developed a parallel existence as entertainment, alongside the participatory form, although it was still very much a dance for individuals and not yet performed on stage by a chorus line. A few men became cancan stars in the 1840s to 1860s, and an all-male group known as the Quadrille des Clodoches performed the dance in London in 1870. But women performers were much more widely known in this period. They were mostly middle-ranking courtesans, and only semiprofessional entertainers—unlike the dancers of the 1890s, such as La Goulue and Jane Avril, who were highly paid for their appearances at the Moulin Rouge and elsewhere. The female dancers of the Second Empire and the fin-de-siècle developed the various cancan moves that were later incorporated by the choreographer Pierre Sandrini in the spectacular "French Cancan", which he devised at the Moulin Rouge in the 1920s and presented at his own Bal Tabarin from 1928. This was a combination of the individual style of the Parisian dance-halls and the chorus-line style of British and American music halls (see below).