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Silicates

The chief of these are the garnets, crystallising in the cubic system, and anhydrous.

The garnet is usually in the form of a rhombic dodecahedron, or as a trisoctahedron (called also sometimes an icosatetrahedron), or a mixture of the two, though the stones appear in other cubic forms.

In hardness they vary from [...]

Zircon

Zircon appears to have been first discovered by Klaproth in 1789, in the form of an earth, and six years later he found that the stone hyacinth contained a similar substance, both having the formula, ZrSiO4, and both having as their colouring agent ferric oxide.

There are several methods of obtaining the metallic element, [...]