BURIED IN THE SNOW 25 



reflecting surfaces become, and the smaller the 

 quantity of light which is able to pass through. 



It will be seen that some progress has been made 

 since Kepler's time in the scientific study of snow, 

 but we are still quite unable to answer that question 

 of his, Cur autem sexangula ? Why are snow-stars 

 six-pointed ? 



BURIED IN THE SNOW. 



The large quantity of air entangled in loose snow 

 helps us to understand how sheep and even human 

 beings can survive long burial in snow-drifts. 

 Samuel Bowditch, an old writer in the Philosophical 

 Transactions, tells the following story : Joanna 

 Crippen, of Chardstock, in Dorsetshire, a spinner of 

 worsted, went home on the 24th of January (1712 ?) 

 when it was snowing hard. She lost one of her 

 shoes, and her clothes, which were very poor, were 

 torn by the brambles. At last she lay down under a 

 hedge, it being then about six o'clock on Monday 

 evening. She was not discovered till the following 

 Sunday afternoon, when a party of searchers found 

 her buried four feet deep. A man thrust a pole into 

 the heap when she cried out and begged him not to 

 push her so hard. When dug out she had no shoes 

 or stockings on. Her clothes were very scanty. Her 

 shoulders were covered by an old whittle * in which 

 she had gnawed a large hole. She had drunk the 

 snow which melted on her body to quench her thirst. 



1 A whittle was a piece of 'white (undyed) cloth, or blanket. 



