It's a crystal of some kind ?. That cross striated grain makes me think it could be corundum that's found in a verity of colors. See if it can scratch hardened steel?. I once sold some tungsten carbide drill bits to a tunnel contractor and the bits weren't lasting all that well. I sent some rock samples back to the R&D guys and they found the rock to have small corundum crystal in it. The stuff is a really hard mineral. Not much we could do about that and the contractor should have preformed what's called a drill-ability test before they placed a firm bid.