EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 269 
blance to feathers, though they were not flat, 
but round. At the abrupt end of the rootlet, 
as if cut off, was a larger dewdrop. On exam¬ 
ining them more closely, feeling and tasting 
them, I found that it was not frost, but a clear 
crystalline dew in almost invisible drops, con¬ 
centrated from the dampness of the cavern, 
perhaps melted frost preserving by its fine¬ 
ness its original color, thus regularly arranged 
around the delicate white fibre. Looking again, 
incredulous, I discerned extremely minute 
white threads or gossamer standing out on all 
sides from the main rootlet and affording the 
core for these drops. Yet on those fibres which 
had lost their dew, none of these minute threads 
appeared.It impressed me as a wonder¬ 
ful piece, of chemistry, that the very grass we 
trample on and esteem so cheap should be thus 
wonderfully nourished, that this spring green¬ 
ness was not produced by coarse and cheap 
means, but that in the sod out of sight the most 
delicate and magical processes are going on. 
The half is not shown.I brought home 
some tufts of the grass in my pocket, but when 
I took it out, I could not at first find those 
pearly white fibres and thought they were lost, 
for they were shrunk to dry brown threads, 
and as for the still finer gossamer which sup¬ 
ported the roscid droplets, with few exceptions 
