FLAKES OF SNOW. 



It is almost trite to say, that where water is frozen the product is ICE ; 

 a tnick, solid, and slim, transparent substance. A comparison between 

 a piece of ice, however small, and a flake of snow, will speedily convince 

 the observer of the very great difference between the substances of 

 which they consist; and the difference is owing to the influence of intense 

 cold upon the particles in a different state of cohesion. When aqueous 

 particles are closely cohered in the form of water, the influence of 

 intense cold upon them produces a solid and ponderous body, viz. ice ; 

 but when this description of particles is dispersed in vapours, and 

 greatly rarified, they are changed by intense cold into frozen particles of 

 a less dense coherence. The difference between the density of those 

 particles which, when acted upon by cold, yield ice, and those which, 

 exposed to the same influence, yield snow, is this, the latter are just 

 twenty-four times lighter, bulk for bulk, than the former. The particles 

 are not only exceedingly rarified as to their bulk, but the bulk is also 

 exceedingly small ; so small indeed is it, that one such particle would 

 present but a very minute object, even when viewed with the powerful 

 aid of the microscope. And the process by which this is brought about 

 is exceedingly curious. Millions of minute drops or points of vapour 

 are floating in the upper atmosphere ; acted upon by intense cold, each 

 of these drops or points is converted into a solid substance, as fine as 

 one of those little motes which we can sometimes see floating in the sun 

 beams. As these descend lower and lower in the atmosphere, they 

 attract each other, and each flake of snow which we see glistening in 

 virgin whiteness upon the ground, consists of a multitude of those minute 

 atoms of frozen matter, cohering together with themostperfectand beautiful 

 uniformity ! Snow is one of the many things the usefulness of which 

 men in general are apt to take small or no account of, and many even of 

 those who do take the trouble to reflect on its effect upon the ground 

 form a very incorrect notion of it. Judging from its nature and 

 appearance, those persons infer that snow must necessarily be injurious 

 to the earth, by reason of its dampness and intense cold ; but the very 

 contrary of this is the fact. The thick covering of snow which lies upon 

 the ground in winter, is far from making the earth cold, but in truth, 

 prevents it from being so. Were the clay exposed to the action of the 

 bitter and piercing winds of winter, it would be utterly deprived of that 

 genial warmth, without which the seed sown within it would not germinate. 

 It is by the close and flaky covering of the shining snow, that a 

 remnant of genial heat is preserved in the bosom of the earth. In vain 



