$6 APPENDIX: NO. LVI. 
another, and seen upon even a hasty examination to be of a beautiful 
crystalline structure. On a closer inspection, they are found to be 
somewhat irregular in shape, with the outline of more or less complete 
hexagons with sides of unequal length; they are formed around 
nuclei by no means placed centrally, often quite where one side of 
the hexagon should be; and they grow in layers of bars one outside 
the other, often larger in section as well as longer as they recede 
from the nucleus; these bars (learned gentlemen will excuse me for 
not describing a crystal more properly) are free from one another 
except at the angles; those of each layer lie in one plane, often not 
the same as the layer which preceded them hes in. At the angles 
are usually small crystalline projections, rising apparently’ per- 
pendicular to the general surface of the crystal. These crystals are 
broken with a slight force; and many of those where the snow has 
been crushed have lost their nuclear portion, but retain the true 
hexagonal form. 
Snow, in the condition of which I hope to have given at least some 
notion, is called hieta lumi, or sand-snow, im the Finnish language. 
It yields more water; and hence, even when it is covered with more 
recent snow, the Laps take the trouble of digging down to it to fill 
their kettles with. These primitive people also use it in its dry state 
for washing or cleansing their clothes. After first exposing to the 
external cold for some hours the dresses they wish to purify, for 
reasons which I need not further explain, they beat them with sticks 
upon and under a heap of sand-snow. 
When the winter covering of the ground is in this sandy condition 
(perhaps the moveable state of such shell-sand as that of John 
o’ Groat’s house may best represent it im one respect, and the 
appearance of a bag of clean crystals of salt give some idea of it in 
another), it is a great advantage to all the animals of the country in 
supporting their weight, and is a special comfort to the Reindeer, 
from the facility with which they can remove it with their fore-feet 
-s0 as to get at their food beneath. Though intensely cold to a naked 
hand, it is much better than fresh snow for lying upon, as it does 
not yield too much to the weight of the body, and does not get into 
the nicks of the clothes, or melt in the fur. I may mention that 
with only a thick pair of stockings on, one can walk for some little 
distance from a bivouac without risk of getting either wet or cold in 
the feet; and before a fire in the woods this snow never becomes 
sloppy, but seems to disappear only by evaporation, which greatly 
adds to the facilities of passing the long winter nights in a Lapland 
forest. The same thing is in a great measure true in the spring ; 
the snow is very rarely to be found in that miserable state which 
marks the breaking up of a snow in England. 
Concerning the formation of these crystals, I made experiments 
by burying in the snow at certain intervals of time, chip boxes, some 
empty and some containing fresh snow: I was prevented from fully 
carrying out and registering my observations, but I found that the 
changes went on in the boxes equally with the external snow, and in 
