Despite his name, Cartier was no jeweller: he had found worthless quartz crystals and fool's gold.

BBC: Qu��bec's wood runners

The trail is lined with honour-system huts hawking locally quarried quartz and crystals with prices as low as five francs.

BBC: In Swiss utopia, the devil dwelled

Dr Hazen and his team speculate from meteorite and early rock studies that several hundred mineral species, including zircon, quartz, clay and halite salt crystals, formed during this early period of mineral evolution.

ECONOMIST: Minerals