68o 



Microscopical Essays, 



CHAR X, 



Of the Crystallization of Salts, as seen by the 

 Microscope j together with a ' concise List of 

 Objects. 



Crystallization, in general, fignifies the natural form- 

 ation of any fubftance into a regular figure, refembling that 

 of natural cryftal. Hence the phrafes of cryftallized ores, crys- 

 tallized falts, &c. and even the bafaltic rocks are now generally 

 reckoned to be effects of this operation ; the term, however, is 

 moft commonly applied to bodies of the falinekind; and their 

 feparation in regular figures from the water, or other fluid in 

 which they were diffolved, is called their cryftallization. If the 

 word cryftallization were to be confined to it's moft proper fenfe, 

 as it feems to have been formerly, it could only be applied to 

 operations by which certain fubftances are difpofed to pais from 

 a fluid to a folid ftate, by the union of their parts, which fo 

 arrange themfelves, that they form tranfparent and regularly- 

 figured 



