12 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



leave us lost in wonderment when we look out over 

 the white landscape and think of the hidden beauty 

 of it all. The largest glacier of Greenland or 

 Alaska is composed wholly of just such crystals 

 whose points have melted and which have become 

 ice. 



We may draw or photograph scores of these 

 beautiful crystals and never duplicate a figure. 

 Some are almost solid and tabular, others are 

 simple stars or fern-branched. Then we may 

 detect compound forms, crystals within crystals, 

 and, rarest of all, doubles, where two different 

 forms appear as joined together by a tiny pillar. 

 In all of these we have an epitome of the crystals 

 of the rocks beneath our feet, only in their case 

 the pressure has moulded them into straight col- 

 umns, while the snow, forming unhindered in mid- 

 air, resolves itself into these exquisite forms and 

 floral designs. Flowers and rocks are not so very 

 unlike after all. 



Few of us can observe these wonderful forms 

 without feeling the poetry of it all. Thoreau on 

 the fifth day of January, 1856, writes as follows : 

 . . . "The thin snow now driving from the north 

 and lodging on my coat consists of those beauti- 

 ful star crystals, not cottony and chubby spokes 

 as on the 13th of December, but thin and partly 

 transparent crystals. They are about one tenth 

 of an inch in diameter, perfect little wheels with 

 six spokes, without a tire, or rather with six per- 



