202 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



no man ever saw alive. But still Favosites lay in 

 the ground and waited. 



And the long, long summer passed by, and the 

 autumn and the Indian summer. At last the win- 

 ter came, and it snowed and snowed, and it was so 

 cold that the snow did not go off till the Fourth of 

 July. Then it snowed and snowed till the snow did 

 not go off at all. And then it became so cold that 

 it snowed all the time, till the snow covered the 

 animals, and then the trees, and then the mountains. 

 Then it would thaw a little, and streams of v/ater 

 would run over the snow. Then it would freeze 

 again, and the snow would pack into solid ice. So 

 it went on snowing and thawing and freezing, till 

 nothing but snow-banks could be seen in Wisconsin, 

 and most of Indiana was fit only for a skating-rink. 

 And the animals and plants which could get away, 

 all went south to live, and the others died and were 

 frozen into the snow. 



So it went on for a great many years. I dare 

 not tell you how long, for you might not believe 

 me. Then the spring came, the south winds blew, 

 and the snow began to thaw. Then the ice came 

 sliding down from the mountains and hills, and 

 from the north toward the south. It went on, 

 tearing up rocks, little and big, from the size of a 

 chip to the size of a house, crushing forests as you 

 would crush an egg-shell, and wiping out rivers as 

 you would wipe out a chalk-mark. So it came push- 

 ing, grinding, thundering along, — not very fast, 

 you understand, but with tremendous force, like a 

 plough drawn by a million oxen, for a thousand feet 

 of ice is very heavy. And the ice-plough scraped 



