The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1902-01-24
WHEN THE SNOW FALLS.
Curious Formation of Drifts ~ Op'
served In the Adirondack
Mountains.

On a good drift-maSing day the snow
comes, not in the star-shaped lakes
that look so pretty when portrayed on
a page of the dictionary, but in small
pellets. writes John r. Spears in Serib-
ner's. These pellets are in shape like
tiny white footballs usually, and they
come rolling and tumbling down
wind as if they had been kicked for
fair" by the half-back gods of the gale!
And yet while they roll and tumble and
bound they find lodging places. and
as the idler gazes he sees them pile up
in wall on the crest of the road cut.
Higher and higher grows the pile,
forming at first a vertical wall, but be-
fore this has risen three inches it is
seen to overhang the gulch. Though
round and easily rolled, these pellets
in some way fit to each other as bricks
would until the overhang is perhaps
a fifth as great as the elevation OF the
wall, and then. marvellous and impos-
sible as il would seem to the unaccus-
toned observer, lip forms on the
crest of the wall, and soon it begins
to droop and hang down. Wider and
longer it grows, farther and farther il
droops, until it's shape is precisely like
the lip formed on huge wave when
ii breaks on a shoal-watcr beach. Lips
that are ten feet wide and hang down
three feet clear of all. though but six
or eight inches thick where they join
the chin of the wall, are not uncom-
mon. BY what magic is it that these
frozen. oblong pellets that go bound
ing along as merrily as footballs form
into such a shape as that? OF course
il the storm continues time usual
~ comes when the lips break off be
cause of their growing weight. And
then no new lip forms to replace the
lost one. The snow merely drops over
into the lee of the wall and generally
fills the cutting.
Another curious feature of these lips
is seen when they do not fall. A thaw
may come-often does come-and
spread n hardened skin over the lip TO
hold il on.
The most wonderful snowstorms Of
all that may be seen every winter in
the Adirondacks are those that prevail
when the sky is cloudless. OF these
there are several varieties. Every
week or two we would see what looked
like foghorn about the distant hills
and then come drifting across the
creek valley. Doubtless it was n real
snow-laden cloud that had been drift
ing along until il struck our level q 300
feet above the seal in the Adirondacks,
when the conditions became favorable
for the release of it's feathery burden.
We saw these clouds fill the air with
flakes that were driven along almost
horizontally by n strong gale, although
the tops Of our old hemlocks and
spruces rose into the clear air and un-
INSTRUCTED sunlight above the highest
level of the snow-producing air STRAIT
um. We even saw the snow so thick
in the air about us that the trunks OF
trees six feet above the earth were not
visible, although the treetops could be
seen, and the sun shone down through
the shallow storm with strength
enough to cast distinct shadows. We
have stood on quiet sunlit hilltop and
looked down into valley less than
hundred feet below us, where a snow
storm was raging with violence and
the temperature was frigid.