The series of small drawings given on pages 137, 138, and 139, were made with a lens of moderate power, but they are not equal in value or structural detail to those drawn beneath the microscope. They are among the most elementary figures observed; and, as illustrative of the first principles of formation, are chiefly worthy of consideration. Of more elaborate figures drawn beneath the microscope, besides those more immediately referred to in the text, examples are given in [Fig. 40], [41], and [42].
The idea of observing snow crystals is by no means original. We know for certain that Aristotle observed them; also Descartes, Greu, Kepler, and Drs. Nettes and Scoresby of modern times. Sir Edward Belcher also devoted a considerable degree of attention to the study of the crystals of snow in the Arctic regions. There the radial arms were seldom less than an inch in length, and might be seen, according to Sir Edward Belcher, drifted in heaps into the crannies and recesses of the ice. They were seldom to be obtained in a perfect condition, generally separating, by reason of their weight and size, on descending to the ground.
Fig. 37.
III.
Having brought to a close all that is here necessary to say respecting the formation of these bodies, and the position they occupy in regard to scientific inquiry, we may now turn to a consideration of their capabilities to suggest new forms in decorative design, as applied to the industrial arts. Being ourselves desirous to promote the adoption of the appropriate as well as the simple beauty of truth in ornament, we will first inquire how far these figures are in accordance with those general principles of arrangement of form which in all ages and countries have constituted the truly beautiful in art.
These are summed up briefly in the propositions contained in the opening chapter of Mr. Owen Jones’s “Grammar of Ornament.” We extract the following:—
“Proposition 3.—As Architecture, so all works of the Decorative Arts should possess fitness, proportion, harmony, the result of all which is repose.