History about the discovery of Agates and Amethysts in Artigas, Uruguay.
The story tells that one night, a wagon coming from southern Brazil and was heading to the City o Montevideo, Uruguay’s Capital City. When crossing a small river in the area of The Catalan, the wagon’s axel broke and one of the wagon’s wheels hit a rock and cracked it open in half. The rock’s interior was very, very bright and had an intense blue color.
Back in the XVIII century, the Spanish King, was very interested in these semi-precious stones. In 1850 two Germans found Agates and Amethysts in the Catalan’s zone. The first rock exportation in the Salto Port, which in those days was very active. At the beginning, only Agates were exported and the interest for the Amethysts began in the first decades of the 1900’s
Artigas is the World’s Reference in Extra Quality Agates and Amethysts.
The Amethyst, it’s formation and properties:
Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz.
It’s crystalline structure was formed due to a gas bubble trapped in the volcanic lava 130.000.000 years ago in what today is the City of Artigas.
Amethysts in Artigas were formed 130 million years ago.
Due to the chemical structure Amethysts are more similar to liquid substances than to solid ones and they are known as Super Cold Liquids.
Amethysts are formed in philons with rich in iron solutions that give that characteristic color to it at temperatures close to 300° C.
The Expeditions: in order to investigate more about these precious stones, to se what they contained and so on… they found a very strong stone and that it also had a very high energy level, it was the Amethyst.
They investigated and discovered that it could be used in rings, necklaces and other jewelry pieces and also as decoration pieces.
Location of the city of Artigas:
Artigas is a Department of Uruguay located in the North end of the country about 600 km from Montevideo. It’s capital is the City of Artigas.
It has a surface of 11.928 km², being the fifth largest of the country. It has an estimated population of 78.019 inhabitants. It is bordered to the North and East by Brazil, which is separated by the Cuareim River; to the South with the Department of Salto and on the West by the Argentina Republic, of which it is separated by the Uruguay River.
At its Northwestern Apex is Bella Unión, city that receives the given name which is at the junction of the Cuareim River with the Uruguay River, on the border of Uruguay with Brazil and Argentina; This gives a special feature of Triple border, only at the national level.