Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-02-15
VOL. 77.--3931. NO. 10.

on her old patrimony OF the earth, ignoring
man, who has marked out his farms upon it,
All the men Of the land in armies could not
work such uniform obliteration in year.
All the men Of the land, as builders, could
not fashion in a century such rare aud uni
versal architecture as the hurrying snow and
wind build up together on tree and house,
rock and fence, and everything that offers
niche and pedestal.
How they come trooping down Hour
after hour we watch, and still the host
comes marching in,--now in steady down.
right phalanxes,-now swerving, whole solid
columns, in rapid fanking movements,-
now in little whirling charges dashing in
from this side and from that in furious
melee.
And each Of the mighty army is clad in
crystal panoply. Let us waylay some Of
the stragglers and examine them. That
crystal panoplyis is our first treasure" The
captives are by no means clad alike, how
ever. Upwards of thousand different
forms of snowflake have been observed. /
have seen book containing some two hun
dred of them figured. Here are simple
prisms, three-sided or six.sided. Here are
some tiny pyramids, one-thirtieth of an inch
in height yet as mathematically perfect in
their lines as the great pyramid Of Egypt in
its best estate. And here are prisms capped
with the pyramids. More familiar TO us
are these star-like forms but verify, as with
the stars above, one differeth from another
in its glory The simplest is this wherein
| six prisms radiate from CENTER like wheel
s-okes from a hub. Then, on bo.h Spikes
and hub nature sets 10 work to play her va
riations. Each ray, beset on either side with
timer prisms, takes on the semblance of a
| far laaf. ba 20 -,
outline as the fern species vary in the sum
mer woods. That center, which ignobly
called the "hub," enlarges to six-side1
plate, or often is itself star whose glitter
ing arms stem off to be tipped with little
trefoils or rosettes. Here lies a star within
a star, and that within another star and all
within fourth some of these centers are
wrought in finest open work, others are
filed white to the rim but under the mi
croscope we could see these last all fretted
over with fairy hieroglyphics, silvery mosa-
les marked off in triangles and hexagons.
In one variety the crossing prisms make
you think of the child's puzzle, where the
little wooden blocks lock together into a
J tight nest Another form seems different
from all the rest it is star set at each end
of prism like the two wheels on an axle
tree. Up in the polar seas, DR.. Scoresby
one day found his ships deck covered three
; inches deep with such little air-chariots.
But these dainty forms, and this variety
in their daintiness, are not the only treas
ures of the snowfllkes. The flakes are akin
in their deeper being, as negro and Esqui
maux, cannibal and Q laker, are yet all one
) in human nature. Snow nature is bound by
law of skies. The sides of every prism
, and pyramid meet at one angle--that Of
! sixty degrees, or its multiples the rays Of
: every star diverge at that one angle; every
vein upon those little fern leaves joins it:
= = stem at that one angle or its multiples. Tn,
!, stars are all sixrayed, or rarely twelve; th'
4 centers all hexagonal. Watch the fakes o
! whole winters storms, climb Chimboraz0
u y go to the pole, or make your mimic snow
u storm for yourself inside chemists bottle
never will you find a finished star with fiv
!, rays or with seven, or with that law Of tn
angles broken. The rays themselves ar
/ broken, but never that creative law. Bruised
: : shattered, huddled together, the snowflake
u reach us but through all that bruise and bat
, i ter that law of skies lies plainly upol
= them. BY that they are born and liv
l. and die.
Is it not very impressive aud awe-ful,-
. these mathematics carried down to the mi
y croscopic measurements, these ethics o
Z the dust" as Ruskin calls them,-the gram
y y legislation of the universe laid thus upon it
u invisible atoms w. C. Ganneh, DID.