Mineral. The word comes from
medieval Latin, minerale -- something mined. Minerals
have 5 requirements. They must be naturally
occurring, inorganic, solid, with a definite chemical
composition and an ordered internal structure.
Minerals have 7 properties: color, luster, hardness,
streak, cleavage, fracture, crystal form. There are over
2,000 known minerals in the world, with about a dozen
new minerals a year being discovered, and if you
discover a new one, you get to name it. Interesting fact: to maintain our American standard of living, each person in the US requires over 38,000 pounds of minerals each year.