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Photo Series ~ Reminisces of Summers Past. "the air is different today the wind sings with a new tone sighing of changes coming the harvest gathered a flower, a nut some mead, and bread a candle and a prayer returning the fruits in thanksgiving to the grove and receiving its blessing again" - Rhawk, Alban Elfed But this is not to mourn the passing of this summer, for its passing was expected and anticipated. No, its to mourn those aspects of summer which never began; those places and things that last saw summer use many years or decades ago, but are now forgotten or neglected. Reminisces of Summers Past. Seeing things as they are now and imagining them as they were then. Soviet Era Dacha (Summer Cottage) This is quite typical of a Soviet era dacha. One floor with an attic and cellar, likely two rooms on the main floor. (Anything more signaled that you just might be a closet capitalist, necessitating a visit from the KGB). Although its clearly been maintained sometime since the fall of the USSR, I have not seen anyone live here in the five years Ive spent summers here. It clearly could be worth something to the owner, since the property is a five minute walk from a river and in an area close enough to Kiev that it could command a nice price. But this dacha, along with at least ten others within a five minute walk, remain unmaintained and unused. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Matt Shalvatis - Roads Less Traveled Photography ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 100+ Views %26 Other Sets @ Flickr taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i

taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i taken with sony ericsson w200i

Few months ago I uploaded a photo of this color pallet, and it became the most visited of my photos :). So here is another one :) HDR from three shots, taken with Canon 450D with Sigma 18-50mm lens, from a gorilapod. As I dont upload full resolution photos, I added two detail crops from this photo on my blog hdrshooter.wordpress.com/ as this shot is about all the small details. taken with sony ericsson w200i

 

:This article is about the mineral or gemstone, for other uses see: Topaz (disambiguation).

Topaz is a mineral, a nesosilicate of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al2SiO4(F,OH)2. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and its crystals are mostly prismatic terminated by pyramidal and other faces, the basal pinacoid often being present. It has an easy and perfect basal cleavage and so gemstones or other fine specimens should be handled with care to avoid developing cleavage flaws. The fracture is conchoidal to uneven. Topaz has a hardness of 8, a specific gravity of 3.4-3.6, and a vitreous luster. Pure topaz is transparent but is usually tinted by impurities; typical topaz is wine or straw-yellow. They may also be white, gray, green, blue, pink or reddish-yellow and transparent or translucent. When heated, yellow topaz often becomes reddish-pink. It can also be irradiated, turning the stone a light and distinctive shade of blue. A recent trend in jewelry is the manufacture of topaz specimens that display iridescent colors, by applying a thin layer of titanium oxide via physical vapor deposition.

Topaz is commonly associated with silicic igneous rocks of the granite and rhyolite type. It typically crystallizes in granitic pegmatites or in vapor cavities in rhyolite lava flows like those at Topaz Mountain in western Utah. It may be found with fluorite and cassiterite. It can be found in the Ural and Ilmen mountains, Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Pakistan, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States.

The biggest topaz crystal ever found - named "El Dorado" - was found in Brazil in 1984. It weighs 6.2 kg and belongs to the British Royal Collection.

Etymology and historical and mythical usage

The name "topaz" is derived from the Greek topazos, "to seek

," which was the name of an island in the Red Sea that was difficult to find and from which a yellow stone (now believed to be a yellowish olivine) was mined in ancient times. In the Middle Ages the name topaz was used to refer to any yellow gemstone, but now the name is only properly applied to the silicate described above.

According to Rebbenu Bachya, the word "Leshem" in the verse Exodus 28:19 means "Topaz" and was the stone on the Ephod representing the tribe of Dan.

Yellow topaz is the traditional November birthstone

References

* Hurlbut, Cornelius S.; Klein, Cornelis, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., ISBN 0-471-80580-7

* Webmineral

* Mindat with location data

* Mineral galleries

Category:Gemstones

Category:Aluminium minerals

Category:Nesosilicates

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The Wikipedia article is licensed under http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html and uses material from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/topaz.