14 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



As surely as the petals of a flower are numbered, 

 each of these countless snow stars comes whirling 

 to earth, pronouncing thus with emphasis the 

 number six, order, xoapog. This was the begin- 

 ning of a storm which reached far and wide, and 

 elsewhere was more severe than here. On the 

 Saskatchewan, where no man of science is present 

 to behold, still down they come, and not the less 

 fulfil their destiny, perchance melt at once on the 

 Indian's face. What a world we live in, where 

 myriads of these little discs, so beautiful to the 

 most prying eye, are whirled down on every 

 traveller's coat, the observant and the unobserv- 

 ant, on the restless squirrel's fur, on the far- 

 stretching fields and forests, the wooded dells and 

 the mountain tops. Far, far away from the haunts 

 of men, they roll down some little slope, fall over 

 and come to their bearings, and melt or lose their 

 beauty in the mass, ready anon to swell some little 

 rill with their contribution, and so, at last, the 

 universal ocean from which they came. There 

 they lie, like the wreck of chariot wheels after a 

 battle in the skies. Meanwhile the meadow mouse 

 shoves them aside in his gallery, the schoolboy 

 casts them in his ball, or the woodman's sled 

 glides smoothly over them, these glorious 

 spangles, the sweepings of heaven's floor. And 

 they all sing, melting as they sing, of the mysteries 

 of the number six ; six, six, six. He takes up the 

 waters of the sea in his hand, leaving the salt ; he 



