no 



SYLVAN WINTEE. 



or, it may be, of a number, of marvellous diversity 

 of shape, as we have just shown, but all related 

 to each other by six-sided symmetry — each part 

 of each marvellously and accurately related. 



Ice, too, whether the transparent substance 

 that covers clear water, the heavy, semi-opaque- 

 looking material presented to us in huge blocks, 

 or the frail and beautiful material of which hoar- 

 frost is made, is not a shapeless mass, but a 

 beautiful fabric consisting of floral shapes of ex- 

 quisite beauty and diversity. The same quies- 

 cence of the atmosphere needed for the most 

 perfect form of hoar-frost must be present for 

 the preservation of the perfection of form in snow- 

 crystals. Should the winds roughly stir the 

 snowy particles, and should these, when fallen, 

 be roughly trodden under foot, their individual 

 beauty departs, and they become shapeless masses. 

 It is as Nature forms them that they assume the 

 exquisitely beautiful shapes which are the admira- 

 tion of all who have studied them. 



Look at the ice which forms upon a pane of 

 glass in a bedroom or sitting-room window 

 when the frosty keenness of the external air has 



