Get to Know a Mineral: Realgar!

And now for another installment of "Get to know a Mineral!"  It's been a while, but I thought I'd write about a mineral I found not too long ago on my job site: Realgar!

Realgar, or "ruby sulphur" as it is sometimes called, is an arsenic sulfide mineral (As₄S₄).  As its moniker suggests, it is red in colour but is also known to be orange.   It is a soft mineral (1.5 to 2 on the Mohs Scale of Hardness) that occurs in monoclinic crystals or as powder.  It is often associated with orpiment (As₂S₃), as well as calcite and barite.

Its etymological beginnings originate from Arabic: رهج الغار, meaning 'powder of the mine'.  Realgar was called "sandaracha" by the ancient Greeks who knew of its poisonous nature.  This nature was exemplified when realgar was used to poison rats in medieval Spain and in sixteenth-century England.  It was a prominent item of trade in the ancient Roman Empire, where it was used for red paint and as a medicine.  China also utilized it as a medicine, incorporating it into household items such as wine cups, images and charms in the hope that it would ward off disease.

Commonly occurring as a low-temperature hydrothermal vein mineral associated with other arsenic and antimony minerals, realgar also comes about from volcanic sublimations and in hot spring deposits.  Well known localities include China, Switzerland, Turkey and Peru.  Realgar occurs with lead, silver and gold ores in Hungary, Bohemia and Saxony.  The United States also boasts mines with realgar occurences, as well as in the geyser deposits of Yellowstone National Park.

In years past, realgar was used to perform corrosive work in industries such as leather manufacturing, where it would be used to remove the hair from animal pelts. The use of its corrosive nature has been abandoned in modern times due to its listing as a known carcinogen, and because cheaper competing products exist.  It is however, still sometimes used in the killing of weeds, insects, and rodents.

For a geologist, realgar is an exciting indicator mineral and a favorite of mineral collectors.  It has been known to change to a yellow powdery form after being subjected to long periods of light.  This yellow powder was once thought to be orpiment, however it has recently been shown to possess a distinct chemical compound and is known as pararealgar.

Also Get to Know:

Molybdenite
Garnet
Cummingtonite

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The Middle Man

"But how did it all begin?"  This is the question that seems to dominate a great many conversations about the cosmos, religion, and mankind's role in it all.  The religious will insist that a creator had a [his] hand in setting the universe in motion.  They point to the body of evidence that scientists have compiled over generations and unwaveringly claim that this validates their reasoning.

However, this is just not true at all.  Using observations about our material world to draw up conclusions of a non-material world and a non-material creator makes absolutely no sense.  When pieced together, these facts and observations about our world imply a material origin, of which we have dubbed the Big Bang.  What these [mostly] moderate religious followers are implying in their "theory" is a middle man.

A middle man is a concept most often utilized in business, where there are several individuals who all want a cut of the action/payload.  For example, there is the car salesman who after selling a car, will receive a portion (commission) of the proceeds.  Retail stores also act as middle-men as they are an extra step between those producing the goods and those purchasing the goods.  In the age of the internet, concert-ticket sites act as middle men by providing a medium through which participants can buy/sell tickets, and by taking a small cut of the transaction. 

So, in the context of the universe, God (or god) is the middle man.  According to the religious, God is the necessary condition that must exist in order for our universe to exist.  With regards to the Christian God, He has existed since the very beginning (whatever and whenever that was) and it is by his benevolence that life on Earth has flourished.

The middle man in action.

But this middle man is just not necessary.  He, or rather we, inserted him into the grand scheme of things at a time in our history when we had no clue about the physical nature of our world.  We moulded him into a form that resembles our human state both emotionally (Old Testament) and physically (New Testament).  This is not hard to see.  Anyone who reads the jealous and despicable acts of God in the Old Testament will attest to the fact that He seems more human than divine.

It then follows that the scientific (and atheistic) world view incorporates no middle man.  No space-man to roll the planets in their celestial orbits.  No God-man to offer forgiveness for illogical sins.  And no blatant fable for the beginning of the world.  The same facts and observations mentioned at the beginning are used to build a physical view of the world, one that makes sense as we reside in a physical plane and not an imaginary, non-nonsensical one.

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