_Assimilation and Growth in the Crystal._—There exists in the crystal a property analogous to nutrition, a kind of nutrility, which is the rudiment of this fundamental property of living beings. The development of a crystal starts from a primitive nucleus, the germ of the crystalline individual that we will presently compare to the ovum or embryo of a plant or an animal. Placed in a suitable culture-medium—_i.e._, in a solution of the substance—this germ develops. It assimilates the matter in solution, incorporates the particles of it, and increases, preserving at the same time its form, reproducing its specific type or a variety of it. Its growth proceeds without interruption. The crystalline individual may attain quite a large size if we know how to nourish it properly—we might say, to fatten it. Very frequently, at a given time, a new particle of the crystal serves in its turn as a primitive nucleus, and becomes the point of departure for a new crystal engrafted upon the first. Taken from its mother liquor, placed where it cannot be nourished, the crystal, arrested in its growth, falls into a condition of rest not without analogy to that of a seed or of a reviviscent animal. Its evolution is resumed with the return of favourable conditions—the bath of soluble matter. The crystal is in a relation of continual exchange with the surrounding medium which feeds it. These exchanges are regulated by the state of this medium, or, more exactly, by the state of the liquid stratum which is in immediate contact with the crystals. It loses or it gains in substance if, for example, this layer becomes heated or cooled more rapidly than the crystal. In a general way, it assimilates or dissimilates according as its immediate environment is saturated or diluted. Here, then, we have a kind of mobile equilibrium, comparable, in some measure, to that of the living being.