Two images of the same Epsom Salt crystal at a magnification of 50x.  The image on the left shows what the crystal looks like in unpolarized light.  The image on the right was taken using crossed polarizers and a full wave plate.

Lately I have been trying out ways of growing crystals in as thin a layer as possible.  But of course going to one extreme leads to thoughts of what would happen at the other end of the spectrum.

While preparing slides to grow crystals in thin layers, I went ahead and made one slide were I used the surface tension of the water solution to carefully create the largest, thickest drops I could on one slide.  The resulting crystal growth showed some fantastically rugged looking surface topology.  When viewed close up the images almost look like satellite photos of mountainous terrain.