The Marvel of Minerals... Ecole des Mines.

A recent congress I attended was held in the Ecole de Mines, tantalizing close to the Jardin du Luxembourg to those of us not entirely mesmerised by the proceedings of the day. Unable to abscond, I instead let my mind wander off around the impressive surroundings of this grand school of engineers, founded by Louis XVI in 1783, situated in the former Hôtel de Vendôme since 1816.

For all around the buildings were old display cabinets of large minerals, extracted from countries all across the world and better still, the Musée de Minéralogie...

Unfortunately, the agenda was so tightly-scheduled that I only had half an hour to visit this beautiful museum and so I had to race around, trying to take in as much as possible in a limited time-slot. However, even if frustating, the visit was magical, in large part due to the fact that the rooms and displays have not been adulterated by some modern gadget/gimmick technology, designed to create some 'interactive experience' involving much tiresome swiping of screens etc.

On the contrary, the beauty of the minerals alone was enough to keep you entralled as room after room revealed itself in sucession, your feet making the wooden parquet creak when peering into the numerous cabinets at the treasures within. There were full written descriptions, of course, but my trip allowing for the bare minimum I had to abandon trying to memorize the wonderfully intriguing names.

Whilst the vast majority of specimens did come from far-flung countries, many were collected far closer to home, so to speak, enabling you to view Europe in a slightly different, more exciting, primal light once presented with the inorganic marvels to be prised from its rock beds, unearthed from the depths of its lands.

The mineralogical terms to describe the 'habits' (appearance) were equally mind-blowing, with an explosion of end-less adjectives to feed the imagination; acicular, foliated, micaceous, dendritic, plumose, reticulated, stellate....

However, even without any description or explanation, the pieces themselves are just incredible...

It is difficult to believe that such wonders are shaped without human intervention since the formations and patterns seem willfully aesthetic...

While some look vaguely familiar in shape and colour to some mineral already seen, others defy definition to the point it is difficult to believe they are even solid matter as opposed to some fluffy substance...

Or formed by molton wax or resin or simply lava...

Others are like clustered plastic spindles, thrown together...

Or tangled, frenzied fibres...

Or shiny, metallic, facetted columns...

Or exploding needle clusters...

Or shards of glass, bursting outwards...

Or clustered crystals...

Or icy blocks, sturdy yet fragile...