Photo by Violet Anderson Royal Ontario Museum Quartz is common at Mont Saint-Hilaire and is widespread amongst the different environments. Color varies from colorless, gray, brown and black. Luster is vitreous. Diaphaneity is transparent to translucent to opaque.
Fracture is conchoidal to subconchoidal.
Hardness is 7. Streak is white. Known since antiquity, the origins of the name are uncertain, possibly from the German quarz , hard, itself of uncertain derivation.