RT Journal Article
A1 Parsons, Ian
T1 Crystal Mountains: Minerals of the Cairngorms
JF Mineralogical Magazine
JO minmag
YR 2014
JF Mineralogical Magazine
VO 78
IS 7
SP 1795
OP 1797
SN 0026-461X
AB This is a beautiful and unusual book, unlike any I have reviewed before. It has some of the attributes of a coffee-table book, in that it has a large format and is illustrated lavishly. But it has a depth and range of content, mineralogical, geological, geographical, social and historical, which make it rather special. It is so full of interest, in so many different ways, that I found it difficult to write a systematic review, as one does for conventional textbooks. It seemed to me that the flavour of many of the chapters was best given by example.The Cairngorms are known to mineralogists mainly through the eponymous smoky variety of quartz. Mountaineers will know that there are 12 British mountain summits over 4000 feet and that nine of them are in the Cairngorms. If I have any qualification at all to write this review it is that long ago, when I was a schoolboy in southeast London, with negligible mountaineering experience, a chum and I hitch-hiked up to Scotland with the aim of climbing all the 4000-footers, an objective achieved mostly in mist and driving rain. Only on later visits, particularly in winter, did I come to appreciate the rather special character of the scenery. Mountain enthusiasts will get a great deal of pleasure from the superb summer and winter photographs. Apart from some magnificent corries, the Cairngorms are a region of remote high plateaus and broad, rounded summits, and although they require a very long walk in, they are easy ground for mineral hunters. Mineral samples can be collected from the widespread loose gravels and boulder fields of the high plateaus, and from pegmatite veins in rock faces. In 2003 the Cairngorms were designated a National Park, covering 4528 km2, the largest in the UK.
RD 2/17/2019
UL https://dx.doi.org/