Saturday, December 20, 2008

Agates in the Sahara











Doing trips through the desert means to look for a safe place over night and you will have a look what is surrounding you - especially on the ground like snakes, scorpions and so on. At the fifth trip in Algeria on the way to Mali friends of mine and me rested in the south of Algeria along the Tanesrouft piste. Next morning we found a field with a lot of stones - and some of them were agates.
Quotation Wikipedia :

Most agates occur as nodules in volcanic rocks or ancient lavas where they represent cavities originally produced by the disengagement of volatiles in the molten mass which were then filled, wholly or partially, by siliceous matter deposited in regular layers upon the walls. Such agates, when cut transversely, exhibit a succession of parallel lines, often of extreme tenuity, giving a banded appearance to the section. Such stones are known as banded agate, riband agate and striped agate.


Since last year I started to work on the agates in form of tumbling them in a cylinder filled with fine Siliciumcarbid (SiC) which is a syntetic abrasive and water. Then you will have to wait for several weeks and then you can see a result - as shown in the following photos.




Friday, December 19, 2008

Resume photovoltaic plant



My photovoltaic plant exists now 2 1/2 years. In meentime I lost one modul by shot or crash from a meteoric stone ( I think) But nevertheless the plant is running fine and gives me good results in earning money. Over the whole time I earned 6,435 EUR for selling electrical energy to the net.

In Germany more and more ppl decided to do such a kind of investment, cause the returns of shares is much more worth - in the moment.