latter. This at first sight appears an anomaly; but we explain it on the supposition that the entire structure of the original crystal has been of a high order, the shafts six-sided, as they remain still at their base, and the leafy incrustrations to have been regularly distributed prisms, as in the preceding figure; that the crystal, in its descent, has passed through various temperatures of intense cold, probably exchanged for a warmer at one instant of time, in which it has partially thawed, and again passing into a cold stratum in approaching the ground, has been once more congealed, giving rise to the white opacity and irregular form of its terminations. And this explanation is the more reasonable, as will be gathered from a description of the dissolving or thawing of these bodies.
Fig. 31 is a crystal seen just previous to its returning to the primitive drop of water. Originally composed of the ordinary radial arms, each supporting prisms of the form seen in Fig. 29, and with a simple hexagonal nucleus, under the influence of a very slightly increased temperature the rigidity of each line has become relaxed, whilst the crystalline matter, all but fluid and no longer heaped up into prisms, is distributed over a wider area, according to the laws of attraction and corresponding area of surface.
A very different order of figures are those of which Figs. 32, 33, 34, and 35 are types. The originals were exceedingly small--so minute, indeed, that the specks containing all these beauties of detail were almost inappreciable to the naked eye. It will readily be perceived that they differ greatly from the order arising out of the primitive star or its secondary radii. The base of these must be referred to the hexagon, as shown at Fig. 2. The most highly elaborate of our illustrations, shown at Fig. 33, exhibited a succession of planes raised one above another, the centre of each radial arm intersected by a slender crystalline shaft laden with delicate prisms. Fig. 35 preserves more the form of the ordinary hexagon, and was cut very regularly into facets. Of Figs. 34 and 35 we were unable to observe the exact disposition of the raised surfaces, and have delineated the outline only: these figures fell, with several others far more complicated, during the continuance of a very unusual degree of cold for these latitudes.