KATHLEEN. My goodness! (Takes up the stone again, very delicately;
and drops it. General consternation.)
L. Never mind, Katie, you might drop it from the top of the house,
and do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and
as good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have
your faults, like other people, and, if I were you, the next time
I wanted to assert anything energetically, I would assert it by
"my badness," not "my goodness."
KATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!
L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my "too-badness." But you
may as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look
carefully at the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its
surface, and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the same
stone as the ruby), in which you will see the same lovely
structure, like the threads of the finest white cobweb. I do not
know what is the exact method of a ruby's construction, but you
see by these lines, what fine construction there is, even in this
hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually appears as a
massive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical
distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but,
practically, crystallized masses throw themselves into one of the
three groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either as
Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or
fibers), they make the stones or rocks formed out of them
"FIBROUS;" when they are in folia, they make them "FOLIATED;" when
they are in knots (or grains), "GRANULAR." Fibrous rocks are
comparatively rare, in mass; but fibrous minerals are innumerable;
and it is often a question which really no one but a young lady
could possibly settle, whether one should call the fibers
composing them "threads" or "needles." Here is amianthus, for
instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you
ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper
points and brighter luster than your finest needles have; and
fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest
lace; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere
purple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is
red oxide of copper (you must not breathe on it as you look, or
you may blow some of the films of it off the stone), which is
simply a woven tissue of scarlet silk. However, these finer
thread-forms are comparatively rare, while the bolder and needle-
like crystals occur constantly; so that, I believe, "Needle-
crystal" is the best word (the grand one is, "Acicular crystal,"
but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily
understood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf-
crystals, as I said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and
the Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form essentially
granular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks; and it is always a
point of more interest to me (and I think will ultimately be to
you), to consider the causes which force a given mineral to take
any one of these three general forms, than what the peculiar
geometrical limitations are, belonging to its own crystals.
[Footnote: Note iv.] It is more interesting to me, for instance,
to try and find out why the red oxide of copper, usually
crystallizing in cubes or octahedrons, makes itself exquisitely,
out of its cubes, into this red silk in one particular Cornish
mine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the
octahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that
mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls'
strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners
of crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the
most curious teaching for you. For in the fulfillment, to the best
of their power, of their adopted form under given circumstances,
there are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue;
and indeed expressible under no term so proper as that of the
Virtue, or Courage of crystals;--which, if you are not afraid of
the crystals making you ashamed of yourselves, we will by to get
some notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, and more
about yourselves than the minerals. Don't come unless you like.
MARY. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but
we'll come, for all that.
L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread
crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying
glasses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads
about them. For the best thoughts are generally those which come
without being forced, one does not know how. And so I hope you
will get through your wet day patiently.