The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-03-24
UNDER THE SNOW.

Spangles of sllvery fro st upon the grass,
And edged the brook with gliLterng parapets,
And puilt IT crystal bridges, touched the pool,
And turned its face to ass, or rising thence,
They shook from their full laps the soft liOht snow
And buried the great earth, as Autumn winds
Bury the forest floor in heaps OF leaves.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
The snowflake, arrested in its descent and
transferred to the microscope, is an object of
beauty, and teemlng with matter for reflection.
The landscape which the frost traces during
the night with delicate crystals on the window
pane, is mystery to the child and marvel to
the man. Here Is exhibited beauty in COM
bination with power. Great agents have been
frost and fire" in the physical revolution of
the world. How they began, aud where they
will end, let us leave for spectators to dream
and confne our business to the world as it is.
After nights downfall, as far as the eye can
scan, everywhere lies the snow. 1t makes the
leatiess trees look elegant, hides thesmoke-drled
city garden, and buries all evidence of the
scavenger's neglect. The town is as trim and
clean as chlmney-sweep in his Sunday shirt
and the country one vast table-cloth to which
birds are the only guests. But under the snow
lies, fearful to contemplate all the unpleasant
experiences Of mud and slop. So "frost and
fire" conduCe alternately to our pleasure and
pain.
The small experiences OF snow which fall to
our lot are sufficient to remind us of the glaciers
and avalanches of mountainous districts. 1.-THE
snow which during the whole year falls upon
the mountains does not melt, but maintains its
solid state, where their elevations exceed the
height of nine thousand feet or thereabouts.
Where these snowssaecumulate to great thick
ness in the valleys, or in the deep may frac-
lures of the SOIL they harden under the influence
of pressure resulting from their incumbent
weight. But 1t always happens that q certain
quantity of water the result OF momentary
fusion of the superficial beds, traverses its sub
stance, and this forms crystalline mass of ice,
granulated in structure, which the Swiss natural
lists designate neue. From the successive melt
ing and freezing, provoked by the heat by day
and the cold by night, the indltration of air and
water in its interstices the neUe is slowly trans
formed into a homogeneous and sky-colored
block OF ice, filed with an infnity of air bub-
bles; this is what Is called gldce 6atleuse, bub-
bled ice. Finally, these masses are entirely
frozen; the water replaces the ar bubbles;
thence the transformation is complete; the ice
is homogeneous, and presents those fine azure
tints 30 much admired by the tourist who ira
verses the magnificent glaciers of Switzerland
and Savoy"
Such are the glaciers which fiji the gorges Of
the Alps, and by gradual progress move on
ward to the valleys, where they continually
melt, while at their sources they are being as
continually replenished. Such the means by
which great and important changes have been
wrought on the surface of the globe, and such
the material tor many castle in the air more
fragile and eyanescent than snow. The parallel
roads of Glen Roy indicate the action OF the
glaciers of Scotland In ancient times, and other
evidences may be traced among the mountains
OF Wales.
At one time motion prevailed in the vicinity
OF snoW-capped mountains that AN avalanche
might be brought down by the firing of q gun
or the tinkling of bell; that trifing sound
might cause small fragment of snow to MOLE
and in its motion downward to accumulate until
1t became an avalanche, which, like that of Val
Calanca in 1906, might transport forest from
one side of the valley to the other or bring
destruction like that of the valley of Tawich in
1874, WHICH buried the whole village OF Bueras
''under the snow"
loo haa ranantlu haaD made 4Lo o,,L:ooI oe :.
very interesting communication to contempo-
rary, in which the process of crystalllzatfon
during iquefacton has been thus graphically
described: Here is block of clear lce such
as any fshmonger can supply Rows of air bub-
bles can be seen running parallel to each other
throughout the mass and in some irregular
| places there is fine gauZe-like appearance pro-
duced by web of minute bubbles. THIS is but
the poetical way in which Ice expresses a split;
for this beautiful netting is the result of nothing
more than some accidental blow. Cutting slice
f1om the block across the bubbles, let us hold ii
close to a naked gas-hame, and now let us OBJ
| serve it. The lamp of Aladdin could not have
wrought more wondrous change. The part
before clear and unmarked is now studded all
| over with lustrous stars, whose centres shine
| like FURNISHED silver.
"A fairy seems to have breathed upon the ice
and caused transparent flowers of exquisite
beauty suddenly to bloom in myriads within
| the ice, and AL with q charming regularity oi
position. 1t is the tangible fairy heat that has
L
cording to the same laws that shape the snow
| into its beautiful and well-known crystalline
/ forms so often to be seen in snow storms here
| and elsewhere. Ice is indeed only an aggre
| gate Of crystals similar to those of snow, which,
| lying together in perfect contact, render eact
/ other invisible, and the block transparent.
| When the heat of the gas-fame entered the
slab, it set to work to pick the ice TO pieces by
| giving it, in certain places, q rapid molecular
| shaking, and the fairy flowers which appear in
| the warmed ice are the result of this agitation
1 On pTiOri grounds, we should therefore infer
| that the shape of these liquid crystals-tor they
| are merely water-would be the same as the
| solid crystals which originally build up the ice
| This is found to be the case. The two are seen
| to be identical, each has six rays, and the ser
| rations in both follow the angle of sixty de
grees; just as the ice freezes, so, under suitable
conditions, 1t lique6es; the ice flowers, or ne
gative crystals, appearing in the same plane as
that in which they were formed.
'The air bubbles in ice show this direction
| The bubbles collect in widely distant layers
making the successive stages of freezing; be
| tween the layers there is either a clear inter
yening space, or those perpendicular rows o
bubbles already noticed. Accordingly, the Ice
freezes parallel with the former and at rght
angles with the direction of the latter bubbles"
Beneath the snow and the ice we all direct oul
| hopes for the young year. There lie buried the
germs which shall make our fields green, feeC
our cattle, make our gardens gay, replenish oul
granaries, GIL our tables, store our cellars, and
our daily wants. 1t cannot cause much sur
prise, therefore, that at this season of the yea
| all should feel an interest, though but few ex
| Dress IL. of what Haa hidden iundar the gnnWU ~