A SNOW-STORM 



that is caught and retained between the 

 crystals. Then how, like a fleece of wool, 

 it rounds and fills out the landscape, and 

 makes the leanest and most angular field 

 look smooth ! 



The day dawned, and continued as inno- 

 cent and fair as the day which had preceded, 

 — two mountain peaks of sky and sun, with 

 their valley of cloud and snow between. 

 Walk to the nearest spring run on such a 

 morning, and you can see the Colorado 

 valley and the great canons of the West 

 in miniature, carved in alabaster. In the 

 midst of the plain of snow lie these chasms ; 

 the vertical walls, the bold headlands, the 

 turrets and spires and obelisks, the rounded 

 and towering capes, the carved and but- 

 tressed precipices, the branch valleys and 

 canons, and the winding and tortuous course 

 of the main channel are all here, — all that 

 the Yosemite or Yellowstone have to show, 

 except the terraces and the cascades. 

 Sometimes my canon is bridged, and one's 

 fancy runs nimbly across a vast arch of 

 Parian marble, and that makes up for the 

 falls and the terraces. Where the ground 

 is marshy, I come upon a pretty and vivid 

 illustration of what I have read and been 

 9 



