_Mechanism of Reparation._—Gernez some years later made known the mechanism of this reparation, or, at least, its immediate cause. He showed that on the injured surface the crystal becomes less soluble than on the other facets. This is not, however, an exceptional phenomenon. It is, on the contrary, quite frequently observed that the different faces of a crystal show marked differences in solubility. This is what happens in every case for the mutilated face in comparison with the others; the matter is less soluble there. The consequence of this is clear; the growth must preponderate on that face, since there the mother liquor will become super-saturated before being super-saturated for the others. We may explain this result in another way. Each face of the crystal in contact with the mother liquor is exposed to two antagonistic actions: The matter deposited upon a surface may be taken away and redissolved if, for any reason whatever, such matter becomes more soluble than that of the liquid stratum in contact with it; in the second place, the matter of this liquid stratum may, under contrary conditions, be deposited, and thus increase the body of the crystal. There is, then, for each point of the crystalline facet, a positive operation of deposit which results in a gain, and a negative operation of redissolution which results in a loss. One or the other effect predominates according as the relative solubility is greater or less for the matter of the facet under consideration. On the mutilated surface it is diminished, deposition then prevails. But this is only the immediate cause of the phenomenon; and if we wish to know why the solubility has diminished on the mutilated surface Ostwald explains it to us by showing that crystallization tends to form a polyhedron in which the surface energy is a relative minimum. CHAPTER VI. NUTRITION IN THE LIVING BEING AND IN THE CRYSTAL. Assimilation and growth in the crystal.—Methods of growth in the crystal and in the living being; intussusception; apposition.—Secondary and unimportant character of the process of intussusception. I have already stated (Chap. VI. p. 209) that nutrition may be considered as the most characteristic and essential property of living beings. Such beings are in a state of continual exchange with the surrounding medium. They assimilate and dissimilate. By assimilation the substance of their being increases at the expense of the surrounding alimentary material, which is rendered similar to that of the being itself.