Poor, Poor Porphyritic

Every trade or hobby has difficult to pronounce words of art. Like porphyritic, an adjective describing large crystals in an otherwise fine grained rock. Pronounce it poor-fer-itic. The crystals don’t have to be overlarge or dramatic, just bigger than the groundmass or matrix that surrounds it. In my book I will have two examples, one quite pronounced, Chinese writing stone, and the other, andesite.

Difficult words act as roadblocks to learning. We stumble over them, and in recovering we try to regain our balance by moving on. Without learning. I am hoping, therefore, to retain interest in difficult words and concepts by including photographs of them.

This rock is causing me problems. It isn’t polished, so it looks less attractive  than it otherwise would. And the shadows are bad, although my new cameral setup can overcome that.  Perhaps I will  polish it at my lapidary club. Or perhaps I can put some oil on it to make it look slicker.

“Chinese Writing Stone Slab for Lapidary or Display - Chinese writing stone, or Chinese letter stone, is so named for it’s resemblance to Chinese writing characters. It is also know as Porphyry. Background is a dark greenish-black charcoal limestone matrix with Andalusite crystals - This Chinese Writing Rock form is from Australia.”