2012-01-03

120. Haematite Streak Star

Today's star is drawn with a broken piece of haematite on the tip of a pestle:


In order to identify a mineral's streak colour one has to scratch it over an unvarnished piece of ceramic. The interesting thing about a haematite is that while the stone is of a dark grey colour with a distinc metallic shine to it, its streak is brown or even red - hence one of its (many) German names 'Blutstein' - translating to 'bloodstone'. My piece, though, made a rather dark brown streak and, frankly, I would have preferred a lot more 'blood' in the 'colour'...

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