FROST AND SNOW 



WHEN the sun goes down like a molten ball, its edge cut 

 clean, as if it were bound by a metal rim, we know that a 

 frost is falling. The mist has cut off all rays but the red 

 rays, and thus the sun has taken the tawny hue. Else the 

 sky is clear. Nothing between the surface of the earth and 

 infinity stops radiation. The heat of the day rises upward 

 and floats away undisturbed, bent neither this way nor that 

 by any wind. Every condition favours cold, except that, 

 though the sky is cloudless, much moisture hangs about the 

 earth. We shall have frost, but it will be hoar-frost. By 

 the morning every tree will be hung with a silver broidery, 

 as fine and delicate a foliage as spring itself can offer. The 

 land has been visited by a white frost. Another day you 

 feel, even before you see, that the world is hard and bitter. 

 The frost, heavy beyond its English wont, has left every- 

 where the very slightest sign of its arrival. Some signs it 

 must impress. A grass stem is cut so fine in blade and runs 

 to such a point, it lies so close to the radiating and evaporat- 

 ing earth that it chills the air to the dew-point, as official 

 reports say, even when the sum of moisture is small ; and 

 the dew freezes. Otherwise a really black frost leaves few 

 visible traces, except so far as hardness is apparent. The 



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