ities of
gravel, or conglomerate rock (which is only an old indurated gravel).
Some say it was once a vegetable gum; but it may have been charred wood;
but what one would like to know is, mainly, why charcoal should make
itself into diamonds in India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale.

SIBYL. Are they wholly the same, then?

L. There is a little iron mixed with our black lead but nothing to
hinder its crystallisation. Your pencils in fact are all pointed with
formless diamond, though they would be HHH pencils to purpose, if it
crystallised.

SUBYL. But what _is_ crystallisation?

L. A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, and it has been tea time
these two hours. What thoughtless things girls are!

SIBYL. Yes, we are; but we want to know, for all that.

L. My dear, it would take a week to tell you.

SIBYL. Well, take it, and tell us.

L. But nobody knows anything about it.

SIBYL. Then tell us something that nobody knows.

L. Get along with you, and tell Dora to make tea.

(_The house rises; but of course the_ LECTURER _wanted to be
forced to lecture again, and was._)

FOOTNOTES:

[145] Dante, Inf. 7. 1.

LECTURE II.

_THE PYRAMID BUILDERS._

_In the large Schoolroom, to which everybody has been
summoned by ringing of the great bell._

L. So you have all actually come to hear about crystallisation! I cannot
conceive why, unless the little ones think that the discussion may
involve some reference to sugar-candy.

(_Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of
council._ ISABEL _frowns severely at L., and shakes her head
violently._)

My dear children, if you knew it, you are yourselves, at this moment, as
you sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eye of a mineralogist, but a
lovely group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by atomic forces. And even
admitting you to be something more, you have certainly been
crystallising without knowing it. Did I not hear a great hurrying and
whispering, ten minutes ago, when you were late in from the playground;
and thought you would not all be quietly seated by the time I was
ready:--besides some discussion about places--something about 'it's not
being fair that the little ones should always be nearest?' Well, you
were then all being crystallised. When you ran in from the garden, and
against one another in the passages, you were in what mineralogists
would call a state of solution, and gradual confluenc