Art and Geology: The Crystal Searcher

"We can affirm as for sure, that it [the crystal] can be found in rocks of the Alps, often on so inaccessible sites, that only by climbing [on a rope] one can recover it."
Pliny the Elder (23-79 BC)
 

Fig.1. Painting by Henry Lévèque with the title “Crystal searcher Jacques Balmat” (first to ascend Mont Blanc in 1786).