How to Identify Uncut Crystals
- 1). Acquire a small specimen of the crystal. If you can, break off a piece of the larger crystal. The piece needs to be small enough to fit under the objectives, or lenses, of a microscope.
- 2). Place the specimen under the microscope on the stage of the microscope. The stage is the little platform right under the microscope's objectives. Place it on a slide so that it doesn't damage the microscope itself.
- 3). Examine the crystal specimen. Make sure that the image you see through the microscope's ocular lens is clear. If not, adjust the view by changing the magnification. You can do this by revolving the objectives until you find a suitable magnification, and then fine-tune it by using the coarse-adjustment and fine-adjustment knobs.
- 4). Note the crystal's characteristics. Are the atoms round, triangular, hexagonal or cubed? Are the edges jagged or smooth?
- 5). Check the crystal's characteristics against an authoritative reference, such as "Crystal Structure Determination" by Werner Massa. Cubes may be diamonds, garnets, or spinel, among others, and hexagons might be rubies, sapphires, amethyst, or calcite.
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