Prospecting of minerals in the Аltai in the 18th century
The article is devoted to the history of searches for minerals on the territory of the Altai in the 18th century, which were aimed at their industrial exploitation by a stone-cutting factory. The article deals with the attempts to discover supplies of precious and semi-precious stones on the territory of the Altai. Before Peter the Great it was considered that there were no supplies of precious stones in Russia. Only in the epoch of Peter the Great there was a decisive turn, which led to the discovery of Russian semi-precious stones. Reforms by Peter the Great in the mining sphere prepared the base for the discovery of precious stones in Russia. Peters reforms resulted in the mining development of the country when Russian prospectors started to discover deposits of semi-precious and precious stones. The article gives a definition for the term semi-precious stones, which describes transparent and evenly coloured minerals in Russian jewellery practice. The article characterizes the role of V.N. Tatischev, the head of Siberian and Ural plants, E. Patren, I.M. Renovantz and other mining administrators and scientists in the study of the Altai deposits of semi-precious stones. The Urals was the main centre of precious stone mining. Cabinet administration hoped to discover precious stone deposits in the Altai. E. Patren discovered deposits of beryl, aquamarine, rose and milk-white quartz in the Tirigerek snow caps, a quarry was laid here for their extraction. Small deposits of aquamarine, chalcedony, cornelian and agate were discovered in the western and eastern Altai at the end of the 18th century. Discovery of Belorezk quartz − belorechit − and crystal turned out very successful. Colourless crystal and its coloured varieties were found in some places in the Altai Mountains. Those sorts of semi-precious stones were used to make some small articles. But all the efforts to discover deposits of emeralds, topazes and amethysts failed in the Altai. Large fine crystals were never found. That is why the main development in raw base of the Altai stone-cutting industry remained the searches for coloured hard stones.