Ice-needles to Ice-mountains 



of ice-flowers, and the ice-flowers to be formed 

 of ice-needles. 



Such flowers are of many shapes, but more 

 generally they have six petals each. If a ray of 

 sunlight is thrown upon a slab of ice, through a 

 lens, so as to concentrate the heat, then, as the 

 ice melts, the sparkling of these tiny florets can 

 be seen ; and when their magnified image is cast 

 upon a sheet, the six-petalled flowers become 

 clearly visible. 



Even more beautiful than the ice-flowers em- 

 bedded in solid ice are the ice-flowers embedded 

 in snow. They too are made of tiny spicules or 

 needles of ice ; and they too, while varying much 

 in shape, are commonly six-petalled. 



Solid blocks of ice are at first sight so unlike 

 masses of feathery snow that a child would be 

 surprised to hear a snowflake spoken of as " ice." 

 Yet the difference between the two lies mainly in 

 the arrangement of the little ice-needles, in the 

 .way they are put together. Those of hard ice 

 are more densely packed ; those of snow are 

 more loosely joined, with open spaces between, 

 full of air. It is the abundance of air, mixed 

 in with ice-needles, catching and reflecting light, 

 which gives to snow its whiteness. 



In some cases, however, as with glacier-ice, 

 G 81 



