312 The American Geologist. November, 1900 
remains only fig. 9 {Aulocrinus) to give undoubted evidence 
as to the position of the pores. But how was anyone, in the 
absence of that special mention which Mr. Springer still finds 
so unnecessary, to judge between fig. 9 and fig. 10? To 
charge the authors with having told their artist to falsify any 
of the figures on their plate vii would not be a "serious" or 
"deadly" accusation; it would be mere childishness, for no one 
would intentionally publish figures that were mutually contra- 
dictory. But after reviewing the whole case in the light of 
the frank, lucid and exhaustive account now given to us by 
Mr. Springer, -I can only repeat my opinion that some explan- 
ation of the differences from other figures and observations 
should have been given, and that in several respects scepticism 
has been more than justified. 
SOME CURIOUS MATTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 
By B. K. Emerson, Amherst, Mas!^. 
Plates^ XXI and XXII. 
I TJie dependence of crystallization on character of surface. 
Figure 1. 
Many years ago when president Edward Hitchcock was 
professor of all the sciences in Amherst College, he had a lab- 
oratory in the cellar of the old chapel which was familiarly 
called Hades. 
When the room was dismantled I found on a shelf a small 
l.)ottle which had manifestly contained ammonium sulphide. 
The fluid had evaporated by capillary escape through the 
space between the neck of the bottle and the glass stopper and 
an incrustation of sulphur distinctly crystalline and thick 
enough to be yellow encircled the bottle about in the middle, 
showing the hight to which the fluid rose when it was last 
placed on the shelf. The upper half of the bottle between this 
ring and the bottom of the stopper was marked by two systems 
of concentric rings closely resembling the lemniscates of color 
in the polarization figure of a biaxial crystal. This was de- 
picted on the inside of the glass by films of sulphur so thin as 
