connection with the primeval star, especially, seems far and fanciful enough, but there are yet unexplored affinities between light and crystallization: some crystals have a tendency to grow toward the light, and others develop electricity and give out flashes of light during their formation.
Slight foundations for scientific fancies, indeed; but slight is all our knowledge.
More than a hundred different figures of snow-flakes, all regular and kaleidoscopic, have been drawn by Scoresby, Lowe, and Glaisher, and may be found pictured in the encyclopaedias and elsewhere, ranging from the simplest stellar shapes to the most complicated ramifications.
Professor Tyndall, in his delightful book on The Glaciers of the Alps, gives drawings of a few of these snow-blossoms, which he watched falling for hours, the whole air being filled with them, and drifts of several inches being accumulated while he watched.
Let us imagine the eye gifted with microscopic power sufficient to enable it to