856 Handbook of Nature-Stud-y 



9. "When a pond begins freezing over, what part ot it freezes first? 

 Describe how the first layer of ice is formed over the surface. 



10. Place a bottle of water out of doors in freezing weather. How 

 does the ice appear in it at first? What happens later? Why does the 

 bottle break? How is it that water which has fiUed the crevices of rocks 

 scales off pieces of the rock in cold weather? Why does winter wheat 

 "winter-kill" on wet soil? 



11. Why does frost form on a window-pane? How many different 

 figures can you trace on a frosted pane ? Are there any long, needlelike 

 forms? Are there star forms? Can you find forms that resemble ferns 

 and trees? Do you sometimes see, on boards or on the pavement, frost 

 in forms like those on the window-pane ? 



12. When there is a fine, dry snow 

 falling, take a piece of dark flannel and 

 catch some flakes upon it. Examine them 

 with a lens, being careful not to breathe 

 upon them. How many forms of snow 

 crystals can you find? How many rays 

 are there in the star-shaped snow crystals ? 

 Do you find any solid crystals? Can you 

 find any crystals that are triangular? 

 When the snow is falling in large, feathery 

 flakes, can you find the crystals? Why 

 not? 



13. What is the difference between a 

 hailstone and a snow crystal ? What is sleet ? 



Supplementary reading — Water Won- High cloud snow crystal. 



ders, Thompson ; Forms of Water, Tyndall. Photomicrograph by w. a. Bentiey. 



"When in the night we wake and hear the rain 

 Which on the white bloom of the orchard falls. 

 And on the young, green wheat-blades, where thought recalls 

 How in the furrow stands the rusting plow. 

 Then fancy pictures what the day will see — 

 The ducklings paddling in the puddled lane. 

 Sheep grazing slowly up the emerald slope, 

 Clear bird-notes ringing, and the droning bee 

 A mong the lilac's bloom — enchanting hope — • 

 How fair the fading dreams we entertain. 

 When in the night we wake and hear the rainl" 



^Robert Burns Wilson. 



"The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those 

 beautiful star crystals, not cottony and chubby spokes, but thin and partly transparent 

 crystals. They are about a 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 distinct straight and 

 slender midrib, raying from the center. On each side of each midrib there is a transparent 

 thin blade with a crenate edge. How full of creative genius is the air in which these are 

 generated! I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat. Nature 

 is full of genius, full of divinity. Nothing is cheap and coarse, neither dewdrops nor 

 snowflakes." 



"A divinity must have stirred within them before the crystals did thus shoot and set. 

 Wheels of storm-chat iots. The same law that shapes the earth-star shapes the snow-stars. 

 As surely as the petals of afioiver are fixed, each of these countless snow-stars comes whirling 

 to earth, pronouncing thus, with emphasis, the number six." — Thoreau's Journal. 



