Zinc: An abundant, lustrous, bluish-white, metallic element of the magnesium-cadmium group. Zinc is brittle at room temperature but malleable when heated. It is used to form a wide variety of alloys including Brass, Britannia, Bronze, various solders, and Nickel Silver. Because zinc is not easily oxidized in moist air it is used for sheeting, coating galvanized iron (and other metals), for electric fuses, anodes, meter cases, in roofing, gutters, and is also largely consumed in electric batteries.
Zircon: A common mineral occurring in small crystals which is heated, cut, and polished to form a brilliant blue-white gem used as a refractory when opaque and as a gemstone when transparent.. They are not man made stones like cubic zirconia are. Although they are frequently color-treated, zircons occur naturally in clear, yellow, orange, brown and red. They are a chief source of zirconium. See Hyacinth.
Zoisite: Named after the man who discovered it, Von Zois, an Austrian mineralogist, Zoisite is opaque grayish or whitish mineral with green or black streaks occurring in rhombohedral crystals or columnar masses. It is a silicate of alumina and lime, similar to epidote, and is often found included with opaque ruby (corundum). Zoisite is found in Kenya, Norway, Austria, Western Australia, Italy, and North Carolina. There is a purple-blue variant of it discovered in Tanzania in 1967 called Tanzanite. Zoisite has a hardness of 6.5 on the Mohs scale.