Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/243

Rh of surface with other forms, approaches more nearly the spherical form, as that which is perfectly compact, thoroughly symmetrical, and therefore fundamentally organic. The icosahedron, for instance, approaches the spherical form more nearly than the octahedron does; it is also important to observe that the most precious crystals, and especially the diamond, (which being pure carbon, is therefore, from its composition, most closely allied to the organized bodies,) are those wherein we observe the most compact crystallization, at least that which approaches most nearly to the sphere and is therefore in nowise columnar; wherefore the diamond, particularly on account of its power of refraction, has a closer resemblance to a solid drop of water. This view, by showing how crystallization may be examined, from the three-sided pyramid and the cube upwards to the most many-sided forms, or those which approach nearest to the sphere, may place the theory of crystallization on a more natural and therefore a more philosophical basis. On the other hand we must also take into consideration the copies, or rather the prototypes, of the form of really organized bodies which occur in the solidification of the fluid. It is by no means without a cause, nor to be regarded as a mere lusus naturæ, (a very unmeaning expression,) that pure water in its crystallization assumes forms which correspond most closely with those of inferior organizations: thus the flakes of snow represent the forms of Polypi, Asteriæ, and Medusæ; we find in the ice on windows the forms of many vegetable substances, leaves, stems, flowers; the earth too and some metallic substances present, when melted or united with water, similar types, in which we see the condition under which Dendrites and the manifold forms of native ores originate. In all this the moving creating life of the original fluid cannot pass unnoticed, and becomes still more evident if we examine the history of the origin of organized bodies, in which the fluid appears as the basis both of animal and vegetable life; and thus the very germ of individual organisms is intimately connected with the life of the planet. Indeed this is partly true of the solid parts of the earth; for it is easy to show, even in the fossil kingdom, a transition partly to animal and partly to vegetable life; so much so, that a philosophical inquirer, Henry Steffens, has been led, from a comparison of several facts, to establish two very probable propositions relating to this subject:

"1. In the whole silicious series (of fossils),—which constitutes the chief mass in the oldest and principal mountains of our earth, which goes through all periods, and in its bituminous substances exhibits the remains of an extinct vegetation, yet connected as a living member with the whole existing vegetation by the marsh-turf,—carbon and hydrogen (the essential elements of the vegetable kingdom) are the principal