July 2000 Gemstones & Pearls/Gemology Rorschach Test Inclusion What do you see? Bent over his microscope to peer into a customer’s amethyst ring, Wink Jones blinked and looked again. “It was just the darndest thing,” he says. “I was looking at a perfectly formed perfume bottle, complete with a fashionable stopper.” What Jones, of Winfield’s, Boise, ID, really saw was nature’s surprisingly realistic imitation of a human creation. The inclusion comprises a symmetrically arranged cluster of goethite needles, a form of titanium oxide. This inclusion can occur in most forms of quartz, particularly rock crystal and amethyst. While Jones saw a perfume bottle, other viewers see a shaving brush or a broom. What do you see? Despite the mounted amethyst being well-worn and the facet edges heavily abraded, the inclusion can still be examined easily using 30X or greater magnification. For the needle groups to show up in stark contrast, a combination of oblique and dark-field lighting was used here. The amethyst was photographed at 45X. – by Robert Weldon, G.G.