A SHOWER OF SNOW-CRYSTALS, 255 



or purple. In fact, all the colors of the rainbow are 

 to be seen in the delicate tracery of these fine hex- 

 agonal stars. So that in the perfect whiteness of the 

 driven snow we have an illustration of the well-known 

 fact that the colors of the rainbow combine to form 

 the purest white. For the common snow-flake is 

 formed of a large number of such tiny crystals as were 

 falling yesterday ; though their beauty is destroyed in 

 the snow-flake, through the effects of collision and 

 partial melting. It may not be very commonly known 

 that ordinary ice, also, is composed of a combination 

 of crystals presenting all the regularity of formation 

 seen in the snow-crystals. This would scarcely be 

 believed by any one who examined a rough mass of 

 ice taken from the surface of a frozen lake. Yet, if a 

 slice be cut from the mass and placed in the sun's 

 light, or before a fire, the beautiful phenomena called 

 ice-flowers make their appearance " A fairy seems to 

 have breathed upon the ice, and caused transparent 

 flowers of exquisite beauty suddenly to blossom in 

 myriads within it." 



When we remember that the enormous ice-bergs 

 of the Arctic and Antarctic seas, the snow-caps which 

 crown the Alps, and Andes, and Himalayas, and the 

 glaciers which urge their way with resistless force 

 down the mountain valleys, are all made up of these 

 delicate and beautiful snow-flowers, we are struck with 

 the force of the strange contrasts which Nature pre- 



