In ordinary circumstances crystal-angles are measured by means of light reflected from the crystal-faces. In the partial or complete absence of faces the determination of axial ratios and angles may be impossible. In a recent investigation of certain derivatives of glyoxaline, an example of this was found. It was, in fact, the substance glyoxaline itself, which always occurred as long prisms having four faces in the prism-zone; the ends of the prisms were jagged and rough, and no siglls of optically reflecting-planes could be found on these ends. In such a case, X-ray methods of investigation are now available, and the problem in question is the determination of the dimensions of the unit-cell, not the complete X-ray inveatigation of the structure.