of Gresham College (1663): Diarist George Templeton Strong wrote (volume 4, p. 122) of a hazardous sudden breaking up of pedestrian-bearing ice in New York City's East River during the winter of 1867 that "The ice flashed into fragments all at once like a Prince Rupert's drop." Alfred Jarry's 1902 novel Supermale makes reference to the drops in an analogy for the molten glass drops falling from a failed device meant to pass eleven thousand volts of electricity through the supermale's body. Sigmund Freud, discussing the dissolution of military groups in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), notes the panic that results from the loss of the leader: "The group vanishes in dust, like a Prince Rupert's drop when its tail is broken off." E. R. Eddison's 1935 novel Mistress of Mistresses references Rupert's drops in the last chapter as Fiorinda sets off a whole set of them. In the 1940 detective novel There Came Both Mist and Snow by Michael Innes (J. I. M. Stewart), a character incorrectly refers to them as "Verona drops"; the error is corrected towards the end of the novel by the detective Sir John Appleby. In his 1943 novella Conjure Wife, Fritz Leiber uses Prince Rupert drops as a metaphor for the volatility of several characters' personalities. These small-town college faculty people seem to be placid and impervious, but "explode" at a mere "flick of the filament". Peter Carey devotes a chapter to the drops in his 1988 novel Oscar and Lucinda. The title-giving suite to progressive rock band King Crimson's 1970 third studio album Lizard includes both parts referring to a fictionalised version of Prince Rupert as well as an extended section called "The Battle of Glass Tears". See also Thermal stress Bologna bottle Further reading Sir Robert Moray (1661). "An Account of the Glass Drops", Royal Society (transcribed, archive reference). References External links PrinceRupertsDrop.com High-speed slow motion video demonstrations. Video showing the making and the breaking of Prince Rupert's Drops from the Museum of Glass Popular Science article with video detailing Prince Rupert's Drops Former Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman demonstrate Rupert's Drops, including diagram of internal stresses Glass types Science demonstrations Novelty items Fluid mechanics