Stone Names
Gemstones
About the
names of gemstones.
Most gemstones named on this website are either the name they were called by the
seller when we bought them or
we researched later. Where able, we will give you the mineral and/or gemstone
name as well
as the commercial name. Some gemstones, especially jaspers and agates are named for
the region they come from or color or the person who first discovered them.
Anyway regardless of what it's called they are beautiful when polished. The
hardness is the number on Mohs Scale.
"MOH'S SCALE OF HARDNESS"
10
Diamond
9
Corundum
8
Topaz
7
Quartz
6
Feldspar
5
Apatite
4
Fluorite
3
Calcite
2
Gypsum
1
Talc
In 1822, Friedrich Moh, a German mineralogist devised a crude but
practical method of comparing hardness or scratch resistance of
minerals. It has become universally known as Moh's scale. Moh took ten
well known, easily available minerals, and arranged them in order of
their "scratch hardness". If a specimen to be tested can be scratched by
a known mineral from the list, it is softer than that mineral. If it in
turn will scratch another known mineral, it is harder than that mineral.
This gives a very quick and easy field test for hardness. As such is it
very useful for mineralogists. It is too destructive to be commonly used
in gemology, but is available, and can be valuable on rough gemstones.
We included folklore as an informational note only.
Check out our Links page for sites that have more information on stones and that have given us good advice on selecting stones and polishing.