The mirror., 1920-01-15

l8#gD with us it will remain during the
I7STge greater part of the next three
a!sAyg5 months at any rate in Eatern and
Central Canada. On the Pacific coast the
visit will be shorter.
Whether welcome or not, snow here is
visitor whose coming may be depended up
on. The duration of the visit varies, and
so, too, does the measure in which the visit
is paid, but no Canadian winter passes with
out snow. And it is well that such is the
case, for unless we could eliminate severe
frost, winter without snow would be
real hardship. With snow it is delightful
season-at any rate, to the fortunate pos
SCISSORS of good health and vigor, ample
clothing and warm homes. And these good
things are the possessions of most people in
this favored land.
There is utilitarian side to this visit
OF snow, for snow helps to make roads, to
protect crops, and to fertilize land.
In the late autumn, when most country
roads are dreary streaks of mud, and little
later still more dreary streaks of frozen mud,
as difficult to travel over as would be heaps
OF stone, what is the wish heard everywhere
in the country? Is it not the wish that
snow would come so that people could have
sleighing? And when the snow does come
and the roads are broken out, what quick
ening there is of the whole life of the coun-
tryside; what music the sleigh-bells make!
Teaming commences at once, and es-
sential parts of the years work on the farm,
such as hauling up the wood, are pushed
ahead.
The snow protects the crops in the soil
that have to face winters frost, such as the
hay roots and the wheat of fall sowing, often
called winter wheat And the snow, chem
lists tell us, collects fertilizing elements from
the air and gives them to the soil when the
thaws come and snow turns to water.
Utility comes first, but beauty, too,
is worth considering. The poet, who years
ago sang of ''the beautiful snow," used an
appropriate adjective.
The mantle of white that covers the
landscape is thing of wonderful beauty,
and when one examines the particles of
which it is composed, the beauty of it all in
creases.
Hail and sleet are frozen rain, but snow
is not. 1t is the crystalline form into which
the excess vapor in the atmosphere is con-
densed when the temperature is below freez-
ing. Snow is formed directly by the in
visible aqueous vapor condensing in minute
spicules or needle-like bodies of ice round
the dust particles that float in the air. Flakes
of snow they are cammonly called.
More than 1000 different forms of
snow crystals have been observed, but in all
of them the flaments of ice are arranged at
angles of 90 or 120 degrees, and all these
crystals have been arranged in five groups.
To do them justice the snow flakes should
be examined under microscope, but some
thing of their beauty can be seen by looking
at them closely with the naked eye.
The whiteness of snow is due to re-
Aection of the light from the innumerable
surfaces of the crystals, each of which is
composed of clear ice, just as glass loses its
transparency when pulverized, which then
appears to be white.
But all snow is not white. In polar
and Alpine regions, where it lies unmelted
for years, it is often colored red by the
presence of innumerable small plants. Red
snow seems to have been observed by the
ancients, for passage in the writings of the
Greek philosopher, Aristotle, apparently re-
fers to it. In modern times no attention was
paid to it until it attracted the notice of
Saussure, Swiss geologist, naturalist and
professor of philosophy at Geneva. He ira
yelled extensively in the Alps and was the
second man to ascend Mont Blanc. From
chemical experiments made in 1860, he con-
cluded that the red color of some Alpine
snow was due to the presence of vegetable
substance.
The next observations on red snow were
made in the Artic expedition under Captain
Ross, when this colored snow was found ex-
tending over a range of cliffs on the shore
of Baffin Bay for s miles.