REPRODUCTIVE CRYSTALLISATION.
The general belief that only organic beings have the power of reproducing lost parts has been disproved by the experiments of Jordan on crystals. An octohedral crystal of alum was fractured; it was then replaced in a solution, and after a few days its injury was seen to be repaired. The whole crystal had of course increased in size; but the increase on the broken surface had been so much greater that a perfect octohedral form was regained.—G. H. Lewes.
This remarkable power possessed by crystals, in common with animals, of repairing their own injuries had, however, been thus previously referred to by Paget, in his Pathology, confirming the experiments of Jordan on this curious subject: “The ability to repair the damages sustained by injury ... is not an exclusive property of living beings; for even crystals will repair themselves when, after pieces have been broken from them, they are placed in the same conditions in which they were first formed.”