Hardness of cuprite

Cuprite has a Mohs Hardness of 3 1/2 - 4.  It is brittle, cubic,
octahedral, or dodecahedral in habit, and gives a brownish-red
streak.  I don't have a Vickers hardness for it to hand.  Reference:
Palache, Berman, and Frondel, Dana's System of Mineralogy, 7th ed,
v.1, pp.491-494, Wiley, 1964.

I also don't have newer sources to hand, except for Encyclopedia of
Minerals, Roberts, Rapp, and Weber (Van Nostrand, 1974) who refer
back to Palache et. al.

Cuprite (Cu<sub2>O) is not very hard but is quite brittle.  We have
been able to break it into smaller crystalites with vibratory
polishing of metallographic specimens.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:82
                 Distributed: Thursday, March 20, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-10-82-006
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