Visit a local jewelry store or gem shop and see what you can find out from the experts on how gemstones are cut. There's nothing as eye-catching as a piece of fine jewelry covered with beautifully colored gemstones . Natural gemstones, however, are simply mineral crystals whose chemistry and structure make them look special. Of the 2,000 minerals identified in the world, only about 16 yield important gemstones.
Color is the most obvious and attractive feature of gemstones.
The color of any material is due to the nature of light itself. Sunlight, often called white light, is actually a mixture of different colors of light. When light passes through a material, some of the light may be absorbed, while the rest passes through. The part that isn't absorbed reaches our eyes as white light minus the absorbed colors. A colorless stone absorbs none of the light, and so it allows the white light to emerge unchanged.