  We study the relationship between the statistical mechanics of crystal
melting and instanton counting in N=4 supersymmetric U(1) gauge theory on toric
surfaces. We argue that, in contrast to their six-dimensional cousins, the two
problems are related but not identical. We develop a vertex formalism for the
crystal partition function, which calculates a generating function for the
dimension 0 and 1 subschemes of the toric surface, and describe the
modifications required to obtain the corresponding gauge theory partition
function.
