3° 



The National Geographic Magazine 



our people do at times become a little insistent 

 that the work shall be immediately inaugurated 

 in each and every one of the sixteen states and 

 territories embraced within the provisions of 

 the law, but, in the main, they are very well 

 satisfied with the development that has been 

 made. Rapid progress has been made in engi- 

 neering and in the general work of looking 

 over the projects in all of the states and terri- 

 tories interested and we are hopeful that within 

 a very few years a vast extent of territory in 

 the western county will be developed by means 

 of the national irrigation law and under the 

 administration of Mr Newell and Mr Walcott. 

 Acting President RIcGee : The chair would 

 like to call attention to the fact that in addi- 

 tion to the gentlemen who have been men- 

 tioned as competent and far-sighted public 



officers, competent thoroughly to deal with 

 the greatest engineering 'project that has ever 

 been undertaken, an enterprise which includes 

 not only engineering, but also the develop- 

 ment of ideas and new theories in matters of 

 law, the fact that there are still other citizens 

 of the country who have done most effective 

 work in this great reclamation service. One 

 of our statesmen, one of the most active and 

 energetic among the workers for the law re- 

 cently enacted, has spoken to us. There are 

 man\ T others, and among these we must not 

 forget the vigorous Chief Magistrate of the 

 land, who has for the whole of his administra- 

 tion been one of the most earnest and success- 

 ful advocates of this new law which gives the 

 people of the United States a new outlook for 

 the powers and resources of nature. 



SNOW CRYSTALS 



THE wonderfully beautiful and 

 intricate designs of snow crys- 

 tals have long excited admira- 

 tion. Various students have made de- 

 tailed investigations of their extraordi- 

 nary form and have published drawings 

 of what they look like when magnified, 

 but the most remarkable collection of 

 actual photographs of these crystals 

 (technically, photomicrographs) is in 

 the possession of Mr Wilson A. Bentley, 

 of Jericho, Vermont. Mr Bentley has 

 been making a special study of snow 

 crystals during 20 years. He has photo- 

 graphed many hundreds of them, and 

 has now in his collection more than 

 1 ,000 photomicrographs, no two of which 

 are alike. In the Monthly Weather Re- 

 view he recently published an exhaust- 

 ive account of the results of his inves- 

 tigations. To this report the National 

 Geographic Magazine is indebted for 

 the following facts and also for the 

 beautiful illustrations of snow crystals 

 which accompany this article.* 



* " Studies among the Snow Crystals during 

 the winter of i9oi-'2, with additional data col- 

 lected during previous winters." With 300 

 illustrations of Snow Crystals. By Wilson A. 

 Bentley. Annual summary of the Monthly 

 Weather Review lor 1902. Vol. 30, No. 13. 



Snow crystals are divided into two 

 great classes : those columnar in form, 

 No. 857, and those of a tabular iom\,~No . 

 716. These two fundamental types are 

 in turn divided into many subvarieties. 

 No. 709, possessing a solid tabular nu- 

 cleus surrounded by more or less open 

 structure, is called ste lla r, while No. 920, 

 which has an open central nucleus and 

 resembles a fern, is called fern stellar; 

 No. 746 is of a solid tabular form, named 

 lamellar ; No. 580 consists of columnar 

 forms connecting solid tabular nuclei, 

 and are called doublets. The extremely 

 long needleshaped forms of No. 700 are 

 designated as 7ieedlcshaped or needilar. 

 Crystals with granular coatings, as 807, 

 are called granular. These are the most 

 common form ; then come the fern- 

 stellar, 920, the stellar, 709, and the 

 solid tabular, 746, while the columnar, 

 857, the needleshaped, 700, and lastly 

 the doublets, 580, are the most rare 

 types. 



The forms vary according to the wind, 

 the height of the clouds, the degree of 

 cold, the amount of water in the air, 

 etc. Crystals formed in cold weather 

 or in high clouds are usually columnar, 

 No. 857, or solid tabular, No. 850 



