THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



and in still sterner Canada. There, too, I have 

 often witnessed the 



.... " Kindred glooms, 

 Congenial horrors !".... 



that the poet apostrophises, when 



, . . . " The snows arise, and, foul and fierce. 

 All winter drives along the darken'd air." 



A snow-storm, when the air is filled with the 

 thick flakes driven impetuously before a blinding 

 gale, rapidly obliterating every landmark from the 

 benighted and bewildered traveller's search on a 

 wild mountain-side in Canada; or on the banks of 

 Newfoundland when a heavy sea is running, and 

 floes of ice, sharp as needles and hard as rocks, 

 are floating all around — is something terrible to 

 witness, and solemn to remember. 



Yet there are gentler features and more lovable 

 attributes of winter, even in those regions where 

 he reigns autocratically. The appearance of the 

 forest, after a night's heavy snow in calm weather, 

 is very beautiful. On the horizontal boughs of the 

 spruces and hemlock-pines, it rests in heavy, fleecy 

 masses, which take the form of hanging drapery, 

 while the contrast between the brilliant whiteness 

 of the clothing and the blackness of the sombre 

 foliage is fine and striking. Nor are the forms 

 which the drifted snow assumes less attractive. 

 Here, it lies in gentle undulations, swelling and 

 sinking; there, in little ripples, like the sand of a 

 sea-beach ; here, it stands up like a perpendicular 

 wall; there, like a conical hill; here, it is a long, 

 deep trench; there, a flat, overhanging table; but 

 one of the most charming of its many-visaged ap- 

 pearances is that presented by a shed or out-house 

 well hung with cobwebs. After a drift, the snow 

 is seen, in greater or less masses, to have attached 

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