SCIENCE GOSSIP. 



and there, amid a host of brown, green, 

 and purple sponges, abides a colony ol exquisitely 

 white anemones (Dianthus antiloba) so fixed to the 

 rock that the rising tide may quickest refresh their 

 tentacles. It is difficult to describe the precise tint 

 of these creatures — white, with a suggestion of 

 rose-colmir. The wish to preserve this charming 

 colony from destruction alone prevents the writer 

 from naming the spot where they may be found. 

 But a few steps further on, the rocky plateau along 

 which we have been walking comes to an end, and 

 we behold a small bay, the shore of which is 

 strewn with handsome white and pink pebbles. 

 Here arc several fine caverns, and an even more 

 striking natural arch in the rocks. Further pro- 

 gress is at last impeded by the precipitous side of a 

 tall cliff, and we retrace our steps, pausing at times 

 to watch the cormorants diving, or the gannets 

 Hitting past, or the great black -backed gulls 

 disporting themselves after their own fashion. 



The tide is rising now, and the time no longer 

 favourable for collecting, yet it is well worth while 

 to linger, to see the waves swirl and seethe among 

 the rocks, and listen to the grand, weird sounds 

 produced, as the water fills up pool and cavern. 

 A matter-of-fact person persists that "someone 

 must be beating carpets hard by," whilst another 

 thinks " there are guns in the distance." There is 



really no sound to which it could be compared- 

 Even more wonderful effects may be noticed 

 further on, where the cliff of light-coloured rock 

 is intersected by a broad vein of dark, intrusive 

 material, so weathered as to resemble a huge flight 

 of steps sloping seaward. This vein has, once 

 upon a time, been intersected by a similar 

 right angles to it ; this second vein has been com- 

 pletely worn away, and now forms a cavern, into 

 which the rising tide has a sore struggle to foi 

 way, as the air, which has filled the cavern whilst 

 the tide was low, opposes the entry of the 

 which are, time after time, thrown back with a 

 peculiar belching sound. The heights above are, 

 in the summer, clothed with the fetid iris, sea 

 lavender, blue squill and samphire, the roots of tin- 

 latter acting like wedges and chisels in cleaving 

 the much-weathered rock into ever more numerous 

 fragments, 



Scenes such as this abound along the coast of 

 Guernsey. Let visitors to the island but venture 

 to eschew the directions of guide-books, and for- 

 sake the beaten tracks, and they will rind themselves 

 well rewarded for their pains by the discovery of 

 picturesque and beautiful sites innumerable. 



E. Renouf. 

 Maison de Haut, Burnt Lane, Guei 

 April 10, 1894. 



CRYSTALS BRED IN BOOKS. 



By A. F. Tait, 



T N a certain " kind play-book " known as " Love's 

 Labour Lost," Sir Nathaniel speaks of the 

 "dainties that are bred in a book," but the 

 dainty bred in books 

 known as the dendritic 

 crystal, which is the 

 subject of this paper, 

 never came within Sir 

 Nathaniel's observation . 

 It is a curious fact 

 that the dendritic crys- 

 tal, one of the most 

 interesting and most 

 lovely of crystalline 

 forms, is almost un- 

 known, and has only 

 lately come within the 

 ken of workers with 

 the microscope. Still 

 more curious is the 

 fact that most of us 

 possess specimens, and 

 some of us dozens of really tine examples, and 

 we never knew until now that we possessed 

 them. Onlv the initiated know the home of the 



Dendritic Crystals in Books. 

 Figs. 1 tin, I 3 natural sixes. Fin- 2 magnified. 



dendritic crystal, for, as Mark Twain said of 

 International Law, the subject is " not vet 

 hackneyed." Being, then, so new to observers, 

 the crystal in question 

 is not even named in 

 the usual text-books. 

 I must, therefore, beg 

 the indulgence of my 

 readers for the frag- 

 mentary and imperfect 

 character of this paper, 

 based solely on personal 

 observation. The 

 dendritic crystal (from 

 the Greek, dendron, a 

 tree) may be found 

 where Nature is hold- 

 ing a perpetual exhibi- 

 tion of specim* 

 once brilliant, beautiful, 

 and practically in- 

 destructible Within 

 the printed pages of our books, for years and 

 years, she has been working unseen in silence 

 and in darkness, drawing for us pictures of 



