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opal

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opal

Form of hydrous silica (SiO2.nH2O), often occurring as stalactites and found in many types of rock. The common opal is translucent, milk-white, yellow, red, blue, or green, and lustrous. Precious opal is opalescent, the characteristic play of colours being caused by close-packed silica spheres diffracting light rays within the stone.

Opal is cryptocrystalline, that is, the crystals are too fine to be detected under an optical microscope. Opals are found in Hungary; New South Wales, Australia (black opals were first discovered there in 1905); and Mexico (red fire opals).



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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
Mine, naturally, was the least expensive; it was an opal ring--the opal was my favourite stone, because it seems to blush and turn pale as if it had a soul.
The Lifted Veil by Eliot, George View in context
The little fishing village, nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked like a great opal in the haze.
Anne's House of Dreams by Montgomery, Lucy Maud View in context
But we were bound to walk, so we went on, whilst above our heads waved medusae whose umbrellas of opal or rose-pink, escalloped with a band of blue, sheltered us from the rays of the sun and fiery pelagiae, which, in the darkness, would have strewn our path with phosphorescent light.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Verne, Jules View in context
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