The Crown of Wild Olive Part 44

KATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?

L. To powder, if you like.

(_Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation.

Third Interlude. It sustains severely philosophical treatment at all hands._)

FLORRIE. (_to whom the last fragments have descended_) Always leaves, and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust!

L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.

(_Shows them to_ FLORRIE _through magnifying gla.s.s._)

ISABEL. (_peeping over_ FLORRIE'S _shoulder_). But then this bit under the gla.s.s looks like that bit out of the gla.s.s! If we could break this bit under the gla.s.s, what would it be like?

L. It would be all leaves still.

ISABEL. And then if we broke those again?

L. All less leaves still.

ISABEL (_impatient_). And if we broke them again, and again, and again, and again, and again?

L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it.

Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the large ones: because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent; while the large flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when you let it go, and broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a large ma.s.s would not bend at all.

MARY. Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way?

L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimen of a foliated crystallisation. The little triangles are portions of solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica; but you see it is made up of triangles like the gold, and stands, almost accurately, as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold.

Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals.

MARY. Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.

L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised: from its resemblance to mica, it is often called micaceous iron.

KATHLEEN. May we break this, too?

L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, it would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the gla.s.s again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles where they lap over each other. The gold has the same: but you see them better here, terrace above terrace, countless, and in successive angles, like superb fortified bastions.

MAY. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?

L. Far from it: mica is occasionally so, but usually of hexagons; and here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that the leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as their autumnal gold.

FLORRIE. Oh! oh! oh! (_jumps for joy_).

L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?

FLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.

L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?

FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I suppose.

L. Now you have it, Florrie.

VIOLET (_sighing_). There are so many beautiful things we never see!

L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we should all sigh for,--that there are so many ugly things we never see.

VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!

L. You had better say, 'We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to be glad in thinking how much more beauty G.o.d has made, than human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.

VIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?

L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone; and takes more notice of it than of all the green in the wood: and you, or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;--and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened.

MAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.

L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him and played no croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questions till I've done: for we branch ('exfoliate,' I should say, mineralogically) always into something else,--though that's my fault more than yours; but I must go straight on now. You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of leaf-crystals; and you see the sort of look they have: you can easily remember that 'folium' is Latin for a leaf, and that the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called 'folia;' but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones, other things that are like it in structure are called 'micas;' thus we have Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-mica, which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this foliated iron is called 'micaceous iron.' You have then these two great orders, Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows; and Leaf-crystals, made (probably) of needles interwoven; now, lastly, there are crystals of a third order, in heaps, or knots, or ma.s.ses, which may be made, either of leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound like Roman fasces; and mica itself, when it is well crystallised, puts itself into such ma.s.ses, as if to show us how others are made. Here is a brown six-sided crystal, quite as beautifully chiselled at the sides as any castle tower; but you see it is entirely built of folia of mica, one laid above another, which break away the moment I touch the edge with my knife. Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the same size and colour, which I want you to compare with the mica carefully; but as I cannot wait for you to do it just now, I must tell you quickly what main differences to look for. First, you will feel it is far heavier than the mica. Then, though its surface looks quite micaceous in the folia of it, when you try them with the knife, you will find you cannot break them away----

KATHLEEN. May I try?

L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you.

(_Experimental pause._ KATHLEEN, _doing her best._) You'll have that knife shutting on your finger presently, Kate; and I don't know a girl who would like less to have her hand tied up for a week.

KATHLEEN (_who also does not like to be beaten--giving up the knife despondently_). What _can_ the nasty hard thing be?

L. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate: very hard set certainly, yet not so hard as it might be. If it were thoroughly well crystallised, you would see none of those micaceous fractures; and the stone would be quite red and clear, all through.

KATHLEEN. Oh, cannot you show us one?

L. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful one in the clasp of her favourite bracelet.

KATHLEEN. Why, that's a ruby!

L. Well, so is that thing you've been scratching at.

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 a.s.sert anything energetically, I would a.s.sert 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 ma.s.sive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but, practically, crystallised ma.s.ses 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 fibres), 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 ma.s.s; 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 fibres 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 bis.m.u.th, with sharper points and brighter l.u.s.tre 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 ma.s.s 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.[150] It is more interesting to me, for instance, to try and find out why the red oxide of copper, usually crystallising 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 fulfilment, to the best of their power, of their adopted form under given circ.u.mstances, 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 try 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.