A SNOW-STORM 



that is caught and retained between the 

 crystals. Then how, like a fleece of wool, 

 it rounds and fills out the landscape, and 

 makes the leanest and most angular field 

 look smooth ! 



The day dawned, and continued as inno- 

 cent and fair as the day which had preceded, 

 two mountain peaks of sky and sun, with 

 their valley of cloud and snow between. 

 Walk to the nearest spring run on such a 

 morning, and you can see the Colorado 

 valley and the great canons of the West 

 in miniature, carved in alabaster. In the 

 midst of the plain of snow lie these chasms ; 

 the vertical walls, the bold headlands, the 

 turrets and spires and obelisks, the rounded 

 and towering capes, the carved and but- 

 tressed precipices, the branch valleys and 

 canons, and the winding and tortuous course 

 of the main channel are all here, all that 

 the Yosemite or Yellowstone have to show, 

 except the terraces and the cascades. 

 Sometimes my canon is bridged, and one's 

 fancy runs nimbly across a vast arch of 

 Parian marble, and that makes up for the 

 falls and the terraces. Where the ground 

 is marshy, I come upon a pretty and vivid 

 illustration of what I have read and been 

 9 



