Page:Microscopicial researchers - Theodor Schwann - English Translation - 1947.pdf/230

204 THEORY OF THE CELLS. held in solution. As a specifically lighter fluid poured on one specifically heavier so carefully as not to mix with it, yet gradually penetrates it, so also, every solution, when brought into contact with a membrane already infiltrated with water, bears the same relations to the membrane, as though it were a solution. And crystallization being the transition from the fluid to the solid state, we may conceive it possible, or even probable, that if bodies, capable of existing in an intermediate state between solid and fluid could be made to crystallize, a con- siderable difference would be exhibited from the ordinary mode of crystallization. In fact, there is nothing, which we call a crystal, composed of substance capable of imbibition; and even among organized substances, crystallization takes place only in those which are capable of imbibition, as fat, sugar, tartaric acid, &c. The bodies capable of imbibition, therefore, either do not crystallize at all, or they do so under a form so different from the crystal, that they are not recognized as such.

Let us inquire what would most probably ensue, if material capable of imbibition crystallized according to the ordinary laws, what varieties from the common crystals would be most likely to show themselves, assuming only that the solution has permeated through the parts of the crystal already formed, and that new molecules can therefore be deposited between them. The ordinary crystals increase only by apposition; but there may be an important difference in the mode of this apposition. If the molecules were all deposited symmetrically one upon another, we might indeed have a body of a certain external form like a crystal; but it would not have the structure of one, it would not consist of layers. The existence of this laminated structure in crystals presupposes a double kind of apposition of their molecules; for in each layer the newly-deposited molecules coalesce, and become continuous with those of the same layer already present; but those molecules which form the adjacent surfaces of two layers do not coalesce. This is a remarkable peculiarity in the formation of crystals, and we are quite ignorant of its cause. We cannot yet perceive why the new molecules, which are being deposited on the surface of a crystal (already formed up to a certain point), do not coalesce and become continuous with those already deposited, like the molecules in each separate layer,