A method for the treatment of x‐ray extinction and absorption is developed for thick flat crystals in symmetrical Bragg geometry and for curved crystals in symmetrical Bragg geometry where the diffraction region may be approximated as a thin crystal in Laue geometry. This method permits the calculation of diffracting power vs wavelength. The crystals may have the full range of properties between the ideally imperfect and perfect cases. The parameters describing the mosaic blocks (mosaic block size and mosaic block misorientation) are related to the dislocation arrangement for crystals of Zachariasen's type I (where extinction is primarily controlled by the mosaic block misorientation). It is indicated that for crystals of type II (where extinction is primarily controlled by the mosaic block size) the mosaic blocks are usually due to defects other than dislocations.