THE ICE-COAT ON THE TREES 165 



tinues long, the morning light discloses scenes of marvelous 

 beauty. The orchard has become a veritable fairyland. 

 Each slender stem is a column of crystal on which, at every 

 bud and angle, is a prism dispensing rainbow colors. The 

 drooping ice-encrusted sprays are like wreaths of sparkling 

 jewels, and all the world is a-glitter with innumerable points 

 of light. 



But this brilliant display is a heavy burden on the trees; 

 the stout twigs of sumach and elder bear it easily, but the 

 slender twigs of birch and willow are bent prone, and matted 

 together in a network of ice. Boughs, rightly placed for 

 mutual support, become welded together by a common 

 incrustation; but unsupported boughs are often broken by 

 the sheer weight of the ice. And if to this burden, there be 

 added the stress of rising winds, then great havoc may be 

 wrought in the woods. 



The thickness of the ice covering the stems is much affected 

 by their character and position. Since the water condenses 

 upon them and tends to gather in drops before it freezes, 

 smooth erect stems gather less ice because the water slips 

 away from them ; while rough or horizontal stems acquire a 

 thicker crust, and every downwardly directed point or angle 

 is tipped with an icicle. Thus Roberts might write in his 

 "Silver Show": 



"The silvered saplings bending 



Flashed in a rain of gems 

 And amethysts and rubies 



Adorned the bramble stems." 



Slender twigs are usually tough and pliant and not easily 

 broken: moreover they grow densely, and being more or 

 less interlaced, they lend each other mutual support. The 

 hedge becomes one long fenestrated wall of crystal, the twigs 

 being encased and conjoined with ice in all directions. So 

 joined, the ice supports the twigs ; and not the twigs, the ice. 



