SNOW 187 
The varied and wonderful shapes assumed 
by snow and ice have been best portrayed, per- 
haps, by Dr. Kane in his two works; but their 
resources of color have been so explored by no 
one as by this same favored Professor Tyndall, 
among his Alps. It appears that the tints 
which in temperate regions are seen feebly and 
occasionally, in hollows or angles of fresh drifts, 
become brilliant and constant above the line of 
perpetual snow, and the higher the altitude the 
more lustrous the display. When a staff was 
struck into the new-fallen drift, the hollow 
seemed instantly to fill with a soft blue liquid, 
while the snow adhering to the staff took a 
complementary color of pinkish yellow, and on 
moving it up and down it was hard to resist the 
impression that a pink flame was rising and 
sinking in the hole. The little natural furrows 
in the drifts appeared faintly blue, the ridges 
were gray, while the parts most exposed to 
view seemed least illuminated, and as if a light 
brown dust had been sprinkled over them. 
The fresher the snow, the more marked the 
colors, and it made no. difference whether the 
sky were cloudless or foggy. Thus was every 
white peak decked upon its brow with this tiara 
of ineffable beauty. 
The impression is very general that the 
average quantity of snow has greatly diminished 
