Beginner Instructions, Professional Results! Gemstones are naturally beautiful, but you can make them glisten and shine. This beginner’s guide covers all the techniques you need to know: tumbling, cutting, face polishing and more. By following the authors’ simple approach, you’ll create finished stones worthy of displaying, selling or making into jewelry. Book Features: pertains to a wide range of popular gemstones, from agates to turquoise prevents frustration, with detailed photos and easy-to-follow instructions offers helpful tips from the authors’ years of experience provides information about recommended equipment and supplies briefly introduces jewelry making, with seven simple jewelry projects

Learn how to master special shaped cabochon cutting, assembled stones, star stones, and cat's eyes. Special sections on opal and jade.

Written for a first course in sedimentary geology or sedimentary rocks and stratigraphy (with only an introductory geology/physical geology course as a prerequisite), Prothero and Schwab shows students how sedimentary strata serves geologists as a continuous record of Earths history. The authors conversational style, and focus on the important concepts make the book highly accessible to an undergraduate audience.

From glittering gemstones to fascinating minerals and fossils, this incredible reference book is a stunning celebration of the Earth s buried treasures. Specially commissioned photography captures the essence and beauty of over 450 superb specimens, while lively and informative text describes the characteristics of each and its unique and changing relationship to humankind through the ages. Organized by rock classes and chemical groups, each rock, mineral, and fossil entry contains a photograph of the specimen together with lively, wide-ranging text describing its qualities and history of use. In addition, a detailed, at-a-glance reference panel provides key data for identification and classification.

#1 New York Times bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco at the hands of a buyout from investment firm KKR. A book that stormed both the bestseller list and the public imagination, a book that created a genre of its own, and a book that gets at the heart of Wall Street and the '80s culture it helped define, Barbarians at the Gate is a modern classic—a masterpiece of investigatory journalism and a rollicking book of corporate derring-do and financial swordsmanship. The fight to control RJR Nabisco during October and November of 1988 was more than just the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Marked by brazen displays of ego not seen in American business for decades, it became the high point of a new gilded age and its repercussions are still being felt. The tale remains the ultimate story of greed and glory—a story and a cast of characters that determined the course of global business and redefined how deals would be done and fortunes made in the decades to come. Barbarians at the Gate is the gripping account of these two frenzied months, of deal makers and publicity flaks, of an old-line industrial powerhouse (home of such familiar products a Oreos and Camels) that became the victim of the ruthless and rapacious style of finance in the 1980s. As reporters for The Wall Street Journal, Burrough and Helyar had extensive access to all the characters in this drama. They take the reader behind the scenes at strategy meetings and society dinners, into boardrooms and bedrooms, providing an unprecedentedly detailed look at how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted but also a richly textured social history of wealth at the twilight of the Reagan era. At the center of the huge power struggle is RJR Nabisco's president, the high-living Ross Johnson. It's his secret plan to buy out the company that sets the frenzy in motion, attracting the country's leading takeover players: Henry Kravis, the legendary leveraged-buyout king of investment firm KKR, whose entry into the fray sets off an acquisitive commotion; Peter Cohen, CEO of Shearson Lehman Hutton and Johnson's partner, who needs a victory to propel his company to an unchallenged leadership in the lucrative mergers and acquisitions field; the fiercely independent Ted Forstmann, motivated as much by honor as by his rage at the corruption he sees taking over the business he cherishes; Jim Maher and his ragtag team, struggling to regain credibility for the decimated ranks at First Boston; and an army of desperate bankers, lawyers, and accountants, all drawn inexorably to the greatest prize of their careers—and one of the greatest prizes in the history of American business. Written with the bravado of a novel and researched with the diligence of a sweeping cultural history, Barbarians at the Gate is present at the front line of every battle of the campaign. Here is the unforgettable story of that takeover in all its brutality. In a new afterword specially commissioned for the story's 20th anniversary, Burrough and Helyar return to visit the heroes and villains of this epic story, tracing the fallout of the deal, charting the subsequent success and failure of those involved, and addressing the incredible impact this story—and the book itself—made on the world.

Find success on your rock hunts for popular gems and minerals by selecting the best locations to look for them. Agates, copper, gold—you want to find them! But if you’re searching without a plan, the odds are stacked against you. Whether you’re new to rock hunting or already hold an interest, prospecting is the way to maximize your success. This beginner’s guide by rockhounding expert Jim Magnuson helps you to confidently hunt for a variety of collectible and valuable gems and minerals, including agates, fossils, geodes, and gold. In each chapter, Jim introduces sought-after targets (from Lake Superior Agates to Keokuk Geodes). Then he provides a simple, step-by-step process to finding, collecting, and identifying them in the Upper Midwest. Full-color photographs show the specimens as you’re likely to see them in the field, and range maps tell you if you’re in the right place. Jim points you to locations where you’re allowed to hunt and collect, and he also includes need-to-know information about equipment recommendations, safety, and the legality of collecting. Inside you’ll find: Expert advice: discover what to look for, where to look, and how to prospect Professional photos: see specimens as you’re likely to find them in the field Essential information: learn about collecting rules, safety, and affordable equipment Bonus content: get advice on polishing your finds, metal detecting, and more Perfect for residents and visitors of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, Rockhounding & Prospecting: Upper Midwest is everything you need in one handy guide.