FROST-FORMS ON ROAN MOUNTAIN. 



39 



I watched throughout the winter for the stellar and hexag- 

 onal snowflakes, but never found them while the clouds enveloped 

 the mountain. The particles of frozen vapor in the clouds re- 

 semble finely ground meal. When a cloud rises from fifteen to 



Fig. 13. 



twenty feet above any given place, several of these particles (usu- 

 ally six or eight) come down joined together like beads on a pin ; 

 when it rises fifty or a hundred feet, the little sticks of globules 

 cross and adhere to each other in falling, and reach the earth in 

 all the complex shapes commonly called snow crystals. 



Nothing escapes the ravages of insects, not even books. One of the insect 

 "enemies of books" is the Lepisma saceharina, often called the silver fish, 

 which is marked by its luster and its activity. Prof. Westwood once named a 

 minute beetle, which had done much mischief to the cover of a book, Ilypothene- 

 mus erudites. Specimens of books damaged by insects are exhibited in the South 

 Kensington Museum, London. Mr. Zaehnsdorf, a bookbinder, has formed a col- 

 lection of the book pests which he has met in the exercise of his calling. The 

 Arabs are said to write sometimes the name Kahikaj.! the name of a genius who 

 presides over insects, on their manuscripts, in order to protect them Irom the 

 ravages of his subjects. 



