Flowers and stones, which are formed in the sky

Snowflakes, icicles, ornaments on the window - beautiful crystals of the mineral - the ice. True, thanks to a very rapid crystallization, they are not grown in large, properly educated on all sides by crystals, but led to such entities, which we call the crystal skeletons. From the same crystal is ice and frozen rivers. Hard water - a temporary, periodic mineral, but we know perfectly well that there are areas where ice is a great rarity, and others where he has never lost. So, on hot south almost unaware of this mineral and, in the Iranian capital, Tehran, arrange special pools of mud. These pools are surrounded by high walls, which should protect the water from sunlight. In the occasional frosty nights are a thin layer of ice, which are collected, before he has time to melt during the day and transported in a special room below ground, where he poured a dense clay. Quite a different fate of this mineral in the north or in the polar regions. Here is a typical rock and fossil ice ". The islands of the Arctic Ocean among the layers of clay, sand and silt layers of ice can be seen as a normal rock. It replaces the ice Glass: The famous American polar explorer, Stephenson describes a hut Copper River Eskimos in polar Canada: "The windows of the huts were glazed with plates of beautiful lake ice." But no matter how common the ice in our life and in nature itself, he nevertheless still very poorly understood and often occurs in these unusual formations, it is difficult to unravel their origins. The islands in the Arctic Ocean in the morning after the clear frosty nights in small areas can be observed numerous thin needles of ice. They stand upright in the form of elegant, glittering in the sun stalks. The length of the ice crystals is very different: they reach one - two inches, then pulled up to ten - twelve inches. Especially long fibers can be seen in sheltered places, under the big stones in the pits. These needles have a thickness of 0,5 mm.