No. 244.] 159 



centre as large as a small bean. When dry they float on the water. 

 They appear to have been formed on the bottom, or beach of the lake, 

 by being moved over the sand by the wind and waves, and thus 

 shaped from angular pieces of marl. The cavity is formed by the 

 action of heat. 



Very near the shores of the lower lake of the Cratean lakes of 

 Manlius, on the morning of the 27th of November last, I examined a 

 great number of ice or frost blossoms. The temperature of the at- 

 mosphere at that time was 26° of Fahrenheit. The ground on which 

 these blossoms had grown was a black earth, and as dry as a bed of 

 ashes. Potatoes had been cultivated there the last season. The 

 frost or ice blossoms were formed around the stem of w^eeds, or vege- 

 table which was then dry, and were in contact with the black earthj 

 its form was much like that of a white pond lily in its fullest bloom; 

 the leaves of the flower as numerous and of the same shape; the 

 centre of each leaf perfectly transparent, the middle between the cen- 

 tre and the outer edges translucent, the edge opaque and of the color 

 of snow ; they were delicate and most exquisitely beautiful, no descrip- 

 tion of them could equal their beauty. I plucked one of these 

 frost flowers from its resting place and carried it half a mile 

 on the lid of my Geological basket, but when I called at a 

 house to rest, in handling it the flower dissolved, and thus perished 

 in my hands ; I regretted removing it from its companions, for I had 

 despoiled it of its beauty. It was not destroyed, but changed, and 

 will at some future period form the diamond dew of a brilliant and 

 charming morning. 



In the same locality, I obtained beautiful specimens of transparent 

 solenite, the isinglass of gypsum ; this crystalizes in eight-sided 

 flattened prisms, and when calcined becomes opaque, and opens like 

 the sheets of a quire of letter paper, but the laminae are so thin that 

 1,000 of the layers would not equal an inch in thickness. 



The upper Cratean lake contains about 30 to 35 acres of surface, 

 it is situate in a depression or crater, in the top of a hill, the shape of 

 the crater is that of the inside of a tea cup ; the banks are about 200 

 feet high ; between the water and the top of the crater within the conca- 

 vity, is a thrifty growth of timber, the temperature on the top of the bank 

 was 26"^, at the foot, near the water 35*^, in the water 10 feet below 

 the surface 46*^. Here is ground well calculated by its warmth for 



