CompuServe Messages

Hi, Lanny– One other dirty trick for the mineral databaser to watch: "Hexagonal" is sometimes used for the hexagonal system, which includes the hexagonal division and the rhombohedral=trigonal division. Whenever I see the word "hexagonal" I get nervous about which hexagonal it is. I got surprised this way by good old quartz, having thought of it as being in the hexagonal division for a long time before learning it is really rhombohedral. For a database, we want to either not distinguish between those divisions and call them all hexagonal, or use hexagonal only for the division – as long as we are consistent one way or the other, which the literature often is not (sigh!). Oh, well, at least we can try. –Doug