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Color: Jasper exhibits various colors, but mainly brick red to brownish
red. It owes its color to admixed hematite, but when it occurs with clay admixed, the color is a yellowish white or gray,
or with goethite, a brown or yellow. Often jasper is muti-colored.
Description: SiO2
Jasper is an opaque, fine-grained or dense variety of the silica mineral chert. Jasper, long used for jewelry and ornamentation,
has a dull lustre but takes a fine polish. Its hard ness and other physical properties are those of quartz.
Names
origin: The name jasper is from the Greek iaspis meaning spotted stone
Care
and treatment: The polish on jasper will often be washed away in water. Clean jasper jewelry with
a polishing cloth.
History of the stone: In ancient writings, the term jasper was
mainly applied to translucent and brightly colored stones especially chalcedony, but also applied to the opaque jasper.
Jasper was known as the great "rain bringer" in the 4th century A.D.
For thousands of years black jasper
was used to test gold-silver alloys for their gold content. Rubbing the alloys of the stone, called a touch stone, produces
a streak, the color of which determines the gold content wthin one part in a hundred. Jasper is also one of the stones used
in commesso also called florentine mosaic. Commesso is a technique of making pictures with thin cut to shape pieces
of brightly colored , semi-precious stones developed in Florence in the late 16th century.
Uses:
Jasper is a very pretty inexpensive gemstone. It is usually worn as beads or cabochon jewelry.
Healing ability:
Medicinal values were long attributed to jasper, including a belief that wearing it strengthened the stomach.
Jasper was also believed to cure gynecological problems.
Mystical power: Leopard
skin jasper is said to bring one whatever is needed. Poppy jasper is said to bring joy into life, Opalite jasper was also
said to help one sleep. Jasper was said to drive away evil spirits and protect against snake and spider bites.
Deposits:
Jasper is common and widely distributed, occurring mainly as veinlets, concretions and replacements in sedementary and metamorphic
rocks as in the Urals, North Africa, Sicily, France, India, Venezuela and Germany. Some varieties are color banded and beautiful
examples of jasperized fossil wood and found in Arizona, USA. Jasper is also found in California, Utah and Wyoming.
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