How Early Metal Crystalline Structure Determined????

Remember crystals were the life blood of vendors and used by nobility.

As old as man could collect stuff - normal crystals of minerals were all over and in caves they lived in. Some of them used as tools.

Metal was found in the native form with crystals. Copper and zinc and silver - pyrite (fools gold) and so forth. Pyrite is iron crystal.

As early man smelted or used metal for adornment and tools - the native material was also used to melt down.

Quarts, Amethyst, Lapis and Gypsum Mica and Calcite...Topaz, Emerald, Ruby ...

This book was written in the late 1520s' Georgius Agricola De Re Metallica Translated from the first Latin text 1556.

If you mean microscopic crystals - then the microscope has to be developed first.

Mart> How did the first researchers determine the various crystalline

Well, I mean specifically the atomic structures (or do I mean crystalline structures...?). I know folks could see crystalline structures in metallic ore, but I mean how/when did they determine that, say, some particular kind of iron was body-center- cubic? Or the structure of salt? How could one determine this from a microscope (optical)? Particularly with a metal, since light transmission is useless.

Mark

Well, I mean specifically the atomic structures (or do I mean crystalline structures...?). I know folks could see crystalline structures in metallic ore, but I mean how/when did they determine that, say, some particular kind of iron was body-center- cubic? Or the structure of salt? How could one determine this from a microscope (optical)? Particularly with a metal, since light transmission is useless.

Mark

You have not read the link I gave you.

e.g. a.. Hull AW (1917). "The Crystal Structure of Iron". Phys. Rev. 9: 84. a.. ^ Hull AW (1917). "The Crystal Structure of Magnesium". PNAS 3: 470.

As far as I am aware structures were determined by x-ray crysallography. You do not seem to understand the limits of resolution of microscopy. I have seen metallic structures resolved in a TEM, but this is not how the structures were identified..