Arizona republican., 1919-04-20
SNOW PHENOMENON
 REMAINS A MYSTERY
Columbus Dispatch)

anyone else on earth-which is to say nothing at all. You know that it is white, that it is either granular-com- posed of little round grains-or flaky. If it is flaky, you know that each flake is a 6-pointed crystal formation; at least you ought to know it, for it is a fact. But why it is white, why it is al ways 6pointed, why it was made to come in winter instead of summer-no- body knows that, except that it is part of Natures way, and therefore is the right way.
 You can go to the library and get books that have been written about the snow. You can see magnified pie lures of it. You can read where the scientists tell you about how it is formed in the clouds-and all of that. And when you have read everything that has been written about 1t and have seen all the pictures of the various kinds of snowflakes, and have spent hours with the scientists, you know what everyone knows and nothing more. You know that it is a wonderful arrangement of Nature.
 The snowflakes seem to form them selves out of the moisture of the clouds. At first there is a tiny formation, may be no bigger than the point of a pin but 6-pointed. A number of these tiny 6-pointed stars stick together and make another 6-pointed affair, and they jab into another of their kind and become big snowflake, and fall to the earth, and the whole thing is 6-pointed. i They are always forming high in the heavens, and starting toward the earth. But in the summer the air of the earth l is so warm they melt and fall in rain drops; in the winter, when the air at the level of the earth is cool, they get all the way to earth, and instead of having rain we have snow.
 Snow forms in the clouds everywhere in the world. But in the tropics, where it is always warm at the surface of the earth, they do not reach the ground. But if there is mountain in the trop- 1 ics, the top Of it will be covered with snow, because away up there it Is cool. It would snow at the equator just as it does in the Arctic regions if it were not warmer at the surface of the earth at the equator than it is in the Arctics. 1 In this climate the snow serves a useful purpose in that it covers the vegetation and protects it from the se- were cold of winter. It doesn't make ! vegetation is covered with snow.
 So the most advantageous winters we can have are those where the snow lies upon the ground. The snow forms a blanket, and prevents the cold from destroying the roots of the plants.
 Now that winter is upon us, and the snows are due, study the flakes get out of doors and allow them to alight upon your sleeve. Take a magnifying glass and look at them. They arc beau-
 ties-6- pointed beautis; no two alike
 but all of them e-pointed. When the
 big fellows fall, you do not need a
 glass; you can study them with the
 naked eye.
 And when the snow comes in drifts
 and swirls about the face of the earth
 and drifts into every nook and cranny
 look at it. Behold not an enemy, but 6
 friend. See how nature has woven .
 blanket for her little children. Compret hend, if you can, the infinite patience
 that so devised it that these little par
 ticles should fall silently until they
 formed a great sheet to cover the re.