ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, beauty of appearance was given as a prime quality of a gemstone. In a world where colour is one of the dominant visual sensations, it is not surprising that a gemstone’s beauty is largely determined by its colour. Although the perception of colour is an everyday experience, and as such is taken for granted, in gemmological studies it is important to understand exactly how the appearance of colour is produced in a gemstone. This in turn provides a valuable means of identification as will be seen in Chapter 11 which deals with spectroscopy.
