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intense frost, we have only to imagine thousands of stellate groups, 
such as those just described, entangled together by their complex 
arms into little loose flocculent masses. The peculiar light down-like 
character of the snow which fell on the 26th of December is thus 
easily understood. 
On the 7th of January, between 4 and 5 p.m., the sky over- 
cast, and the thermometer standing considerably below the freezing 
point, Edinburgh was visited by another snow shower. On this oc- 
casion the shower was of a very peculiar kind, for the stellate groups 
of crystals, instead of being aggregated into flakes, as in the shower 
of the 26th December, were for the most part isolated and distinct, 
so that the whole atmosphere was filled with separate ice-stars in in- 
conceivable multitudes, whirling through the air, and drifting past 
one another in mazy paths which no eye could follow, so endless 
were their intersections, and inextricable their labyrinths ; the won- 
derful ice-drift heaping itself up like white sand on the surrounding 
objects, but when projected against dark surfaces, revealing itself in 
all the unrivalled symmetry and beauty of its starry atoms. The 
chief difference between the present snow shower and that which fell 
on the 26th December, consisted in the segregation of its crystalline 
particles. There was a brisk breeze stirring at the time, in the lower 
regions of the atmosphere, and this was doubtless the invisible analyst 
that broke up the snow-flakes into their component elements, and 
flung them in stars and flowers to the earth. 
The following Note from Mr Stephens to Dr Balfour was also 
read : — 
Redbrae Cottage, 14 th January 1861. 
My dear Sir, — -In December 1859, I was visiting Sir Bobert 
Peel at Drayton Manor, in Staffordshire ; and while there, a very 
heavy hoar-frost occurred for nearly two days, — every tree and shrub 
and the grass was fringed with most beautiful silver filagree. When 
walking along the shrubbery in the forenoon, I was led, from the 
remarkable exuberance of the hoar-frost, to examine it more minutely 
than by a casual glance ; and to my surprise and delight, I perceived 
that the crystals presented quite a different arrangement on different 
