3 2 SOMETHING ABOUT SNO W. 



THE SNOW. 



Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb 

 A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed. 

 Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, 

 And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. 

 Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends ; 

 At first thin wavering ; till at last the flakes 

 Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day 

 With a continual flow. 



THOMSON, The Seasons. 



The earth is covered with snow ; it is enveloped, as the 

 poets say, in a shroud of white. But this phrase, poetical 

 as it may appear, is, in reality, inadmissible. A shroud is 

 used to wrap round a dead body, a corpse, whose elements, 

 since they are no longer maintained united by the undefin- 

 able principle of life, go to form other compounds, more 

 permanent and lasting, which will mingle with the earth, the 

 water, and the air. But the earth which the snow covers pre- 

 serves, on the contrary, the germ of life in the seeds and roots 

 of plants; it rests itself, only for the purpose of communicating, 

 at the return of spring, a new impulse to the sap, whose cir- 

 culation sleeps during winter. 



The moment is propitious for studying the snow: come, 

 then, let us examine it. 



And, first, what is snow ? Put a little into the hollow of 

 your hand, and see what transpires. 



It melts, and leaves nothing but water as a residuum. 



Snow, then, is frozen water, water which existed in the 

 atmosphere in the state of vapour, and which, to speak 



