A unique method of destructive analysis has been developed for the study of gaseous impurities in diamonds and other minerals. Crystals are crushed at room temperature in a high vacuum sample inlet system of a research mass spectrometer. This is done by means of a suitably designed crusher which is incorporated in the inlet system of the spectrometer. Crusher elements are constructed from tungsten carbide. The spectrometer used for the analysis has a detection sensitivity of about 10-20 cc at STP. In a preliminary study of diamonds, the gases N2, H2O, CO2, CH4, and Ar have been identified. The most abundant is Na.

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