KINDLY SNOW 73 



Snow can be rough or kindly in its quality as in its 

 quantity. Some snow at once drives the worms, and 

 therefore the moles, far below the ground surface. 

 Contrariwise in one snowstorm I found many moles 

 tunnelling so near the surface that they broke it ; and 

 their passage was marked by a line of snow tiles : the 

 frozen covering had been broken into geometric pieces 

 as it was heaved up from below. The snow had fallen 

 during a thaw that was very quickly followed by a bright 

 sun and sharp frost ; and though the white layer was 

 thin, I have seldom seen a field and lawn so bedecked 

 with brilliants. Walking upon such a surface one thought 

 of a famous passage in which Jefferies quotes Leonardo da 

 Vinci. Both had been astounded at sight of the coloured 

 aureoles making and unmaking themselves before the 

 traveller s feet. As the Polar travellers noticed, lying 

 snow varies much in colour. It is never white, but some 

 times blue, sometimes prismatic. 



One of the most charming passages on the theme of 

 snow crystals is in that underestimated writer Thoreau, 

 and he lays special stress on the difference of one snowfall 

 from another : &quot; The thin snow, now driving from the 

 north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful 

 star crystals, not cottony and chubby spokes as on the 

 1 3th of December, but thin and partly transparent crys 

 tals. They are about one-tenth of an inch in diameter, 

 perfect little wheels with six spokes, without a tire, or, 

 rather,/ with six perfect little leaflets, fern-like, with a 

 disjunct, straight, slender midrib, raying from the centre. 

 ./. . I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and 

 lodged on my coat.&quot; The difference depends to some 

 extent on the height at which the crystals were formed in 

 the atmosphere, and a hand lens will reveal the secret of 

 birthplace as well as of the beauty ; but it is of animals 



