If we could know the exact
circumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to
us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only
caprice of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on
the whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of
Berne should wear their caps in the shape of butterflies; and the
peasant girls of Munich theirs in the shape of shells, than to say
why the rock-crystals of Dauphine should all have their summits of
the shape of lip-pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard
are symmetrical, or why the fluor of Chamouni is rose-colored, and
in octahedrons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, and in
cubes. Still farther removed is the hope, at present, of
accounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and
construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single
mineral, quart;--variations upon a single theme. It has many
forms; but see what it will make out of this ONE, the six-sided
prism. For shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its
"column," and the pyramid at the extremities its "cap." Now, here,
first you have a straight column as long and thin as a stalk of
asparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here you have a
short thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at
the ends; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no
column at all between them! Then here is a crystal with its column
fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; and here is one
stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a
slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little
caps, with a large smooth cap at the top.
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