China ornamental stone. five
Agate floodlight
There is an agate beach in Balikun Kazak Autonomous County in the hinterland of Xinjiang desert, and agate shines like pearls on the earth.
The desirable agate beach attracted me from Urumqi to the depths of the desert 1000 km away in the first month of winter. In the middle of the night, the car passed through the snow and sand dunes, and the stars in the sky and the few lights on the ground reflected each other. At dawn, we arrived at Niuquan Lake, about 80 kilometers away from Santanghu Town, Barkun County. This is a herdsman settlement with only a few families, and it is also the edge of Gurbantunggut Desert. At dawn, I was surprised to find that every herdsman's hundreds of square meters of sheepfolds and cowsheds were surrounded by sun-dried trunks, roots and branches of Hu Yangmu. Old Hu Yangmu either danced like a dragon, knotted like a python, or spread his wings like an eagle. It is strange, simple and spectacular, and exudes the charm of natural art.
The car bypasses the Populus euphratica forest and sand dunes, and the Populus euphratica forest bypasses the sand dunes in a large area, like a note of life praise; Dunes are connected with each other. They are as tall as castles and as short as yurts, recreating the glory of thousands of years ago. The car is spinning in the sand dunes, and the sand dunes are getting bigger and bigger, and the Hu Yangshu is getting smaller and smaller. When Hu Yangmu disappeared completely, high sand ridges, low sand slopes and large beaches merged into a sea of undulating sand.
The sun is setting, and we still haven't found the red hill that marks Agate Beach. The so-called Hongshan is a red-soil mountain, which should be very eye-catching against the background of white snow and yellow sand. But it's getting late around, and we are inevitably a little scared. Xiao Jia, who was driving, suddenly said, "Look, Teacher Yue!" Looking down his line of sight, it is shiny. Ah, agate beach is coming! We were backlit, so Hongshan really couldn't see it, but agate saw it first!
Each has his own income.
The so-called agate beach is about tens of square kilometers on the edge of Hongshan referred to by local herders. The agate here is pure and transparent, and the storage is concentrated. It's really paved. At present, although after several years of continuous mining, the big ones have almost been picked up, while the big ones of walnuts, jujubes and soybeans are still in a dense layer. In fact, Barkun's agate is not limited to agate beach, nor is it just the so-called purity. It also has bamboo agate, silk-wrapped agate, chrysanthemum agate, tuberculosis agate, desert varnish agate, Fengli agate, and so on. Its birthplace is distributed within hundreds of square kilometers around Kate Ma Beach.
It's getting dark, and everyone is in a hurry to set up a tent. After a while, a typical caravan was displayed. The fire was on and the smoke in the chimney curled up. What a "lonely desert"!
After dinner, everyone began to shine. Take out the fine products you picked one by one and enjoy the evaluation. It's really like another delicious dinner, delicious and chewy. Its excitement and pride are all on its face. First, Xiao Jia: "Hey, look!" I saw a crystal-clear spherical agate shining under the lamp, nearly half of which was red and beautiful. The praise from the four people is amazing. Gao Xiao eagerly took out an agate red fish about 20 cm long. Not only is the shape realistic, but orange is also very eye-catching. I took out my beloved birthday peach, which is about the same size as a real peach, and it is a ripe peach, which gradually transitions from white to apricot and then to purple, and there is a faint "frost dew", which is more tender. Xiao Liu, our cooking monitor, finally couldn't help but take out his agate frog, only to see that the frog with bulging eyes and a white belly seemed to jump off his palm. Even better, his back was covered with black, white and red nipple bumps, which made the finishing touch. ……
The caravan is full of joy, pride and admiration. The four smiling faces don't know whether the candlelight reflects them or they reflect the candlelight. This is a warm family. I didn't expect such a family in this barren forbidden zone and the sea of death.
The process of picking agate is actually a process of continuing to create. When I get the birthday peach, I think I can add another peach to my combination stone "monkey offering birthday" to enrich the atmosphere of "longevity" When I got a frog, I remembered that I could combine it with my other two frogs and some agate flowers to create a lotus pond frog. When I got a figure stone shaped like a cow, I thought of my strange stone cartoon "War with the Cow". I can add another scene where the cow is entangled with the Monkey King. ……
China ornamental stone. five
Happy bodhisattva
After breakfast, we set off again.
This place not only produces agate, but also produces wind fossils. Because it was the sea hundreds of millions of years ago, and there were many rocky hills on the seabed. The sea dried up and the mountains stood out. After thousands of years, the accumulated sand around the hills increased and thickened, forming sand dunes, and the protruding hills weathered and fractured. Gravel scattered radially from the top of the mountain, like blooming flowers. Sandstorm, a sculptor, has worked hard day and night for thousands of years to carve mountains into strange works of art.
Far away, I saw a black object on the sand dune, which stood out against the yellow sand. Take a closer look, it is a 30 ~ 40 cm-sized weathered shell figure modeling stone. This man's head is in proportion to his body and has a realistic shape. Looking closely, a girl sat up. The eyes and nose are exquisite, the hair is shawl, and there is a gap of about 2cm×3cm between the hair and the neck, which makes the hair more elegant. I was almost shocked in front of her, awesome, awesome!
I stared at it again and again. I finally realized that she is not an ordinary girl, but a bodhisattva, a majestic bodhisattva. The shawl is not hair, but a ribbon on the hood. She has been sitting here for thousands of years, waiting and expecting, waiting and expecting the epiphany of ordinary people.
Although the bottom of this stone is not flat, it has three fulcrums that are generally high, so people can sit up anywhere.
In the evening, everyone gathered together to admire the bodhisattva, which brought joy to everyone.
Back in Urumqi, I decided to carry a bodhisattva on my back and go to Jiuhuashan Buddhist holy place in Anhui Province to open a light for it. After careful study by many eminent monks in Jiuhua Mountain, it was determined that this bodhisattva should be a Tibetan Bodhisattva. On July 3 1 day, 2006, seven monks made a grand opening for the Tibetan Bodhisattva at Xiaotiantai Temple in Jiuhuashan.
The Tibetan Bodhisattva traveled from near the border between China and Mongolia in the Gurbantunggut Desert to Urumqi, then from Urumqi to Jiuhua Mountain in Anhui, and then back to Urumqi, with a total journey of more than 65,438+00,000 kilometers.
As the saying goes, Wan Li is far away.
resource exhaustion
The agate beaches crisscross, and the unmelted white snow and yellow sand in the rut are intertwined, showing the number and frequency of cars. There are few agates bigger than walnuts.
There are countless sand dunes in Agate Beach, and each sand dune is densely covered with agate particles as big as a finger egg and as big as a soybean. To be exact, it should be called Agate Mountain. This is because the light sand is blown away by the wind, and the heavy agate particles are left behind. I was lying on the agate mound, carrying round and shiny agate particles sideways. I want to string them together to make a necklace, which must be more charming than the emerald agate necklace sold in the jewelry store.
When you look back and forth on Agate Beach, you will also find the clear traces left by the seeder in this barren place. Gullies with the same distance and depth are regularly arranged and extend far away, which is obviously the result of mechanical action and seems to have overturned the calm agate beach. I observed and thought, and finally understood that it was people who used machines to dig agate underground, which was a sign of resource exhaustion.
There is also a kind of "tuberculous agate", which is not only pure and transparent in texture, but also regular in shape, mostly spherical, including egg-shaped, chicken-shaped, peach-shaped and beaded. Big like a softball, small like a mung bean. What is even more peculiar is that its surface has a layer of indelible colors eroded by different minerals, which are very gorgeous and gratifying, including red, apricot, pink, dark blue, light blue, dark green, light green, gamboge, orange, ivory, moonlight, brown, purple orange and so on. Just like a painter mixes colors, whatever color he wants appears. And each color is as dark as it is, and as light as it is. However, this kind of agate is not easy to get. As the name implies: "Nodules are lumps distributed in sedimentary rocks". It's hidden in the rocks.
In order to get "agate with nodules", stone farmers adopted the method of mining and blasting, and deep pits and flying stones can be seen everywhere. Broken rocks, like abandoned mines, are more like war wounds. Standing there, I suddenly seemed to have a scene of "killing the goose to get the egg, exhausting the ze and fishing"
Not too far from the agate beach, there are also silicified wood exposed on the ground, but the tour guide Tie Han Le said: "Silicified wood was picked up a long time ago, and it is this big (it is about the size of a walnut by hand)." It is the exhaustion of resources again.
A few years ago, I picked pebbles in Manas River next to Shihezi. There were not many people at first, and our selection criteria were harsh. Later, more and more people, especially on weekends, shuttled on the beach. After several years, every stone on the beach has been turned over several times, and some stones have disappeared. This is also called resource exhaustion! Now silicified wood and agate are going to dry up again. I wonder what new stone species will be born to replace them.
Harvest and risk coexist.
Today is the fifth day to enter the deep desert. At the appointed time, the tour guide Tielehan came to meet us, but I haven't seen him for a long time. Although three turns and two turns have finally found the origin of agate, what should I do if I go the wrong way when I go back? There are more than four tons of agate on board, so we dare not turn east and west in the desert. If we go into the bunker, it's hopeless. The more I think about it, the more I get scared.
Back to the base camp, it turned out that Tiere Khan had come early with his son. Back home, with the joy of harvest, under the escort of Tielehan, I jumped on the bus and was very happy.
The car drove out of the desert smoothly and reached the front door of Tielehan's house in Niuquan Lake. Driver Xiao Jia got off to check. He said eagerly, "Hurry! Change the tires. " It turned out that the rear tire deflated slowly. A few more kilometers, the air will be exhausted, and potholes or turns will definitely roll over. We are glad that this was discovered in time.
After leaving Tielehan and his son, we went on to Tangsan Lake, 80 kilometers away from Niuquan Lake. Although this 80km is not a sea of death, it is also a desert Gobi without roads. Shortly after the car started, there was some snow on a section of the road. Xiao Jia doesn't know the water depth and wants to go around. This lap just fell into a soft bunker and the car rushed out as soon as it stepped on the gas pedal. Deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper. It's getting dark, send someone to help at once. Soon, the beep and lights of tractors in the distance brought hope to everyone. Tie Rehan's tractor is in front, put on a wire rope to pull, and the car is behind to increase the throttle boom, so it can't get out again. "It's too heavy and too deep." "Royal car, reduce the burden." After unloading four tons of things, the tractor pulled and the car came out easily.
On the road again, I fell asleep as soon as I got on the bus. I don't know how long it took before I was awakened by the noise. It turned out that the car finally drove out of the desert Gobi and drove on the road from Santanghu Town to Barkun County. Just as we were in high spirits, the car suddenly flashed, and the driver stopped to check, "Oh, no! Both tires on the left have burst. " It never rains but it pours. At this time, the wind suddenly blew and the snow blew on my face. Under the headlights, the wind wrapped in snow, and the snow rode the wind and roared even more violently. Soon more than half of the wheels were buried by snow. Depressed mood, whistling snowflakes, helpless waiting. After waiting all night, there was not even a passing car. What a remote and desolate place!
"I heard that there is a shuttle bus from town to county at 9 o'clock every day." Not necessarily, sometimes, sometimes not. Today is the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month. Maybe there is a car. "Yes, there must be a car on the Lantern Festival." So there is a glimmer of hope.
I was cold and hungry and stayed up all night. At eight o'clock, nine o'clock and almost ten o'clock, a bus came from behind. This is a minibus bound for the county seat. Because it is the Lantern Festival, the minibus is seriously overloaded. After repeated begging, I was stuffed in. At noon, I checked into Jufeng Hotel in Barkun Kazak Autonomous County. I stayed in the desert for six days and six nights.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Jia Junbin heard that new tires had been bought.
China ornamental stone. five