|
Tourmalines are gems with an incomparable variety
of colours. The reason, according to an old
Egyptian legend, is that the tourmaline, on its
long journey up from the centre of the Earth,
passed over a rainbow. In doing so, it assumed all
the colours of the rainbow. And that is why it is
still referred to as the 'gemstone of the rainbow'
today.
Yet
the tourmaline has even more names: |
 |
|
|
stones
with two colours are known as bicoloured tourmalines,
and those with more than two as multicoloured
tourmalines. Slices showing a cross-section of the
tourmaline crystal are also very popular because they
display, in a very small area, the whole of the
incomparable colour variety of this gemstone. If the
centre of the slice is red and the area around it green,
the stone is given the nickname 'water melon'. On the
other hand, if the crystal is almost colourless and
black at the ends only, it is called a 'Mohrenkopf',
(resembling a certain kind of cake popular in Germany).
Tourmalines are found almost all over the world. There
are major deposits in Brazil, Sri Lanka and South and
south-west Africa. Other finds have been made in
Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Madagascar, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tourmalines are
also found in the USA, mainly in California and Maine.
Although there are plenty of gemstone deposits which
contain tourmalines, good qualities and fine colours are
not often discovered among them. For this reason, the
price spectrum of the tourmaline is almost as broad as
that of its colour. |
