THAWING. 113 



resplendent -whiteness — of myriads of crystalline 

 forms of exquisite beauty, it is scarcely less 

 interesting to watcli the sudden withdrawal of the 

 force which gives so great a charm to the frigid 

 cohesiveness of particles of moisture. Yet the 

 especial charm with which the two operations of 

 Nature to which we have referred are invested, 

 would be lost if it were not for the existence of 

 the plant world — of spreading tree and clustering 

 shrub, and of the grass and other evergreen plants 

 that cover the ground. 



How beautiful is the provision for the needs of 

 the plant world made by the presence of snow ! 

 "When a period of frost, which would kill by its 

 biting severity all growing things, is about to 

 ensue, then the white and beautiful mantle of 

 snow is flung over the ground to protect them 

 from the fierceness of the cold. The cold has its 

 mission as well as the snow, and both are neces- 

 sary and act in unison. There is little warmth in 

 the snow itself — heat in some degree there is in 

 every body — but the looseness of the crystals as 

 they lie together in masses renders the aggregated 

 body of snow a bad conductor of heat, and hence 



I 



