The sinister growth of the ice crystals is significant There has always been notice of and comment upon the striking similarity between the growth of crystals and the growth of plants. Until now all scientific text-books have said that crystals could only grow in a supersaturate solution of their own substance, and claimed that they were not organic growths--in the sense of growths caused by an intelligence within the crystal. Is it not possible that the scientists have been wrong? Is it not possible that crystals are growths in the same way that plants are growths? Granting that, what is to keep a scientist from isolating and cultivating the crystal embryo? We have done that with germs, and with the life germs in eggs and plants. We can even use a process of parthenogenesis and create monsters from the unfertilized eggs of frogs and sea urchins. Why could not this scientist experiment until the life germ of the ice crystal could be developed and enlarged? Why could not this development continue until the germ could not only create its crystals under the most favorable conditions of temperature, but _at the normal temperature of water_? At the Harvard laboratories water has been, kept liquid far below its normal freezing-point, and under tremendous pressure has been found to remain ice at a temperature of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit! Can we doubt that this appearance of ice at this extraordinary season is due to the malicious activities of a foreign government, envious of our magnificent merchant marine and commerce? The explanation was ingenious, but though the scientific facts quoted were quite correct the inference was hardly justifiable. Water can and does reach a temperature several degrees below 32° Fahrenheit without solidifying--as may be proved by putting a glass of water in a cold room in winter--but the slightest jar causes the instantaneous formation of ice crystals, and in a little while the whole mass is solid. The fact of "hot" ice must also be admitted, but it requires a pressure of rather more than fifty tons to the square inch, and is rarely attempted. This paper also was forced to admit as inexplicable the plume of steam which rose from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet into the air. In any event, the claim that a certain unfriendly foreign government was trying to ruin the commerce of the United States was effectively squashed by cablegrams from Gibraltar, Folkestone, and Yokohama. Three great icebergs had formed in the Straits of Gibraltar and extended until they joined, when a solid mass of ice made a bridge that once more rejoined the continents of Africa and Europe, from Ceuta to the Rock. The plumes of steam were visible here, too. Three mighty columns of white mist rose at equal distances across the gap.