What do the "falcon eye" stones look like, and what are they remarkable about?

The history of the cultural formation of mankind is inextricably linked with his ability to process stones. At first it was silicon, which gave not only magnificent weapons, but also fire, and then - various precious minerals on which a man honed his skill in creating beautiful works of art.

And the falcon eye stones belong just to the last species. They had a strong enough impact on the cultural development of many peoples. This is a semi-precious variety of quartz. Mineral, which is almost the most common on the planet.

It is blue, blue-black, blue, and also occurs in the form of a special mottled variety, which is sometimes called the "cat's eye." This variety is due to its unusual kind of interspersed crocodile.

In general, color variations are very numerous: you can see stones of both beige and dark gray color. At the same time, the darkest variants are of the greatest value, since they are considered to be more ancient.

The stone of the tiger-falcon eye is remarkable for its structure: dark olive needles seem to sprout through it. Especially good is a mineral of dark green color, in the center of which often forms a cloudy spot, strongly resembling a pupil.

Despite the relative transparency, the material is still rather muddy. Very attractive is the "eye" of the green color, in which the combination of translucence and exquisite coloring gives a particularly strong impression.

A similar material, but with an even more pronounced transverse pattern, is called a zebra eye. Thus, the materials that are basically the same are known to people under different names. So, the falcon eye stones have dozens of variations.

Its origin is interesting. All stones of this kind are formed due to the silicification (i.e., silica substitution) of the riebeckite mineral, which retains its structure.

By the way, the term "crocodile" is often called the remnants of riebekita, which in one or another quantity contains all the stones of the falcon eye.

The bulk of the fields is located in South America, although there is evidence of mining in the United States. This mineral is quite rare. Synthetic way to get it too expensive, but often you can see the glass imitations.

The beauty and value of natural stone is largely determined by its iridescence.

Very rare there are extremely expensive samples, which at first sight no one distinguishes from natural amber. Their core is beautifully permeated with bright reddish veins of crocodile.

Fortunately, we know almost all the unique falcon eye stones extracted from ancient times. So, the most valuable and famous of them is today in England. A stone weighing 62.3 grams was donated to the United Kingdom in 1886. Prior to this, he owned a king of one of the states of Sri Lanka, which at one time was captured by the same British.

In addition, a large stone falcon eye (a photo of some of them is in the article) could be found in almost every tribe of the Indians of South America, since this mineral from time immemorial was endowed with mystical properties.