Ice and snow

“ One winter only had passed since the convulsion that disrupted it, and already the snow was beginning to build up its gaps and chasms. All the summer through, for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. ”

“ And as we contemplate their history, as they sail calmly away down the fiord to the sea, how wonderful it seems that ice formed from pressed snow on the far-off mountains two or three hundred years ago should still be pure and lovely in color after all its travel and toil in the rough mountain quarries, grinding and fashioning the features of predestined landscapes. ”

“ When the beautiful spring comes, and the sun looks over the mountain ridges for many long hours day by day, then the snow begins to get full of strange holes, and the ice slips down off the roof, and there is a great cracking and crashing amongst the pine trees, and the rivers begin to wake and leap into life, and the snow goes 79slipping, slipping down into them, and they grow deeper and wilder and fiercer; and it seems as if the valley were full of voices and the laughter of the fairies, pushing the snow down the cascades and clapping their hands to see it swirled along in the fierce water. ”

“ The fellows who scouted for rising ground appeared and disappeared in the drifts, and the snow crusted on their lanterns, melting and freezing both at once. We couldn't hear the sea now; instead there rose the shrill notes of trees and the silky soft whistle of the ice particles over the snow. ”

“ He passes sheets of ice formed by the melting of the snow at its lower edge, and after slipping and sliding down these glistening slabs, he reaches a green sod of grass, while the snow melts from his clothes as he thaws in the tropical sun. ”

“ The snow has fallen in thick blankets, it has changed by pressure into firn, and then becomes a river of ice, flowing down into the valleys, gouging out deep ruts and, when they come into the influence of the summer sun, melting into torrents and rushing down, heaping up against obstacles, forming lakes, and then again finding a passage down, ever down, until they mingle with the sea. ”

“ The ice was split in two and the huge floes heaped up into towering icebergs. The snow fell and drifted over meadow and hill; sky and earth were blended into one. It was piercingly cold, and where the snow had been blown away the ground was hard as stone.
[Pg 373] The Prince of Winter stood in the valley and looked upon all this with content. He went into the forest, where the snow was frozen to windward right up to the tips of the smooth beech-trunks; but in the boughs of the fir-trees it lay so thick that they were weighted right down to the ground. ”

“ The snow is now melted, and the blue sea-ice lies bare, scarcely tinged with red by the setting sun. Even the long winter night possesses its artistic charm from the midday arch of light, or the moon, which changes the channels beneath into rivers of silver. ”

“ The snow disappears with a marvellous rapidity. The ice, that was like granite in hardness and several feet thick on the great lakes, becomes dark and porous, and in spots literally seems to rot away. ”

“ To the vagaries of the temperature he must reconcile himself as best he may. But let his bête noire, the snow—if so violent an antithesis be permissible—appear, and he will be on the alert at once. The snow-flakes, delicately adjusting themselves to one another as they settle down upon the ice, build up among their crystals myriads of tiny air-cavities, and the whole forms a veritable blanket which hinders radiation. It is warm for the same reason that a down comfortable is—it prevents the escape of heat. Now, what shall our ice-farmer do? ”

“ On the smooth plain of the interior no rock waste relieves the snow's dazzling whiteness; no streams of running water are seen; the silence is broken only by howling storm winds and the rustle of the surface snow which they drive before them. Sounding with long poles, explorers find that below the powdery snow of the latest snowfall lie successive layers of earlier snows, which grow more and more compact downward, and at last have altered to impenetrable ice. The ice cap formed by the accumulated snows of uncounted centuries may well be more than a mile in depth. ”

“ Where the cold is so intense, a river becomes frozen from the surface to the ground. Snow falls, there may be a little rain during the moderate season, then snow comes again, and all the time the water beneath is freezing more and more solid. Gravity and the pressure of the inconceivable weight beyond keeps forcing the bulk of ice and snow nearer the ocean, until it projects into the clear sea. ”

“ The expanding, shearing, breaking force of forming ice, the constant cutting of emery-edged running water, and the undermining thaw of spring sent thundering downward with ten thousand varying echoes a half-million tons of snow, ice, and stones. ”

“ The ice has thawed into dark pools on either side, and snow has fallen on what remains. He has strapped his bundle and stick at his back, and, with the foresight taught of necessity in those bridgeless days, is astride upon a long bough, so that if by any chance the ice gives way, or he plumps into some hidden fissure, he may still have hope of safety. ”

“ Here, if snow has fallen, as sometimes happens, while wind is blowing, it is driven into all manner of curving wave crests and undulations; then when the fall is over, the sky clears again, a night of frost hardens and congeals the outlines, and the trees wear fine feathers and{17} plumes of whiteness. As the snowfall packs with its own weight, there grows on the surface of the fields a crust half snow, half ice, covered with dazzling minute crystals. ”

“ We next sprang on the ice, the tossing, tremulous motion of which literally filled the air with noises as of shrieks and howls, and we quietly got on board all the materials which were lying on the floe, and bound the fissures of the ice hastily together by ice-anchors and cables, filling them up with snow, in the hope that frost would complete our work, though we felt that a single heave might shatter our labors. ”

“ The huge, fern-like crystals on the surface of the snow, gleaming with violet rays, may further convey a hint of the truth, and the moustaches of your companions (three in a party are better than two, in case of accident, and alone never, on even an hour’s expedition!) are most likely picturesque with little fringes of clear ice as well. If there is wind, of course, there is no chance of underrating the actual cold; but as a rule these cloudless days are, fortunately, also windless⁠—until the ridge is reached. ”

“ Summer and winter the snow is precipitated upon these mountains, and from time to time the heat of the sun's rays softens the snow, when by its great weight it packs more closely together until it is, in many cases, formed into solid ice-cakes. If we take a quantity of snow or a quantity of granulated ice and put it under a sufficient pressure we can produce clear solid ice, and it is by this process that ice is formed out of the snow and hail that falls continually upon the tops of these glacial mountains. ”

“ The further we advanced to the northward, the thicker became the fog and more intense the cold (two degrees centig, below zero) ; and snow whirled round in squalls of wind, and fell in large flakes on the deck. The ice began to present a new aspect, and to assume those fantastic and terrible forms and colours, which painters have made familiar to us. At one time it assumed the appearance of mountain-peaks covered with snow, furrowed with valleys of green and blue ”

“ Thus the circle of events is completed,—snow, névé, ice (glacier) , water, which last is again absorbed into the atmosphere, and again descends as rain or snow. And this is always going on by the action of the sun. It may here fairly be asked how snow becomes ice. Why does not the snow turn into ice at once, and form a glacier at the top of the mountain as well as at the bottom? We will endeavour to make this clear. Snow is composed of crystals, which assume certain definite forms, and when first the flakes fall they are soft and powdery. ”

“ These layers of ice become numerous and are parallel to each other, like the layers of ice formed from slosh. Such crusts of ice I have myself observed again and again upon the glacier. This stratified snowy ice is now the bottom on which the first autumnal snow-falls accumulate. These sheets of ice may be formed not only annually before the winter snows set in, but may recur at intervals whenever water accumulating upon an extensive snow-surface, either in consequence of melting or of rain, is frozen under a sharp frost before another deposit of snow takes place. ”

“ It made me thoughtful to see the long shadows stretching out upon the snow toward the isthmus of the Graves.
“The wind is from the north and westward, and the ice is so driven in around us as to grate and groan against the sides of our little vessel. The masses, though small, are very thick, and by the surging of the sea have been rubbed as round as pebbles. They make an abominable noise.” ”

“ But every one knows that there is abundant ice and snow on lofty Alpine summits, while down below in the valleys there may be at the same time excessively warm weather. Does it not therefore seem that the nearer we go to the sun the colder it is, and the further we are from the sun the warmer it is? ”

“ The fact is, then, that snow under the influence of pressure passes into the form of ice. In some cases nature does this on a large scale. Where mountains are sufficiently elevated to raise their heads above the snow line we know they are white all the year around with snow. What is not blown away, evaporated, or, as an avalanche, precipitated to lower heights, must accumulate from year to year. But the weight pressing on the lower portions of this snow-field must soon be considerable, and at length become so great, that the snow changes to the form of ice. ”

“ We had snowfall almost every day, and streets, squares, trees and tops of houses have all been covered with snow. Winter.The ornamental waters in the parks have been frozen over and there has been plenty of skating on them. Imagine to yourself a vast sheet of ice with hundreds of men, boys and girls over it, all going in different directions,—in straight lines, circles and curves, with a rapidity and dexterity that is remarkable. ”

“ Snow, however, in the event of soft or warm weather, is an aid to the ice by protecting it from the direct heat of the sun, and the force of a rain is largely expended in melting the snow. The water and snow on the top of the ice freezes into snow ice as soon as the weather turns cold again. ”

“ In summer these layers of snow, from a partial melting and subsequent freezing, become changed to ice on their surfaces, so that we have three kinds of deposits—beds of snow, sheets of dust, and layers of ice. As the whole is pushed down into the valley, these layers tend to assume a vertical position from the bottom of the mass, moving faster than the top; and, the snow in summer melting from the surface as far as the snow-line, the edges of the layers are found passing transversely across the glacier. ”

“ Were this constant movement to cease, the result would be the formation of a sheet of ice of the [5] uniform thickness of about eight feet over the whole Polar region.
13. A layer of snow, which, like the ice itself, is at a minimum in autumn, covers the whole surface of all the ice-fields. This snow, which in winter is sometimes as hard as a rock, sometimes as fine as dust, takes, towards the end of summer, more and more the character of the glacier snow of our lofty Alpine ranges. Its grains, in a humid state, exceed the size of beans, and when in motion they make a rustling noise like sand. ”

“ They are formed in parts of the earth where the land or the mountains reach to the region of perpetual snow. The snows fall from the sky, and accumulate into a snow cap, which by its own weight and by melting and regelation, gradually changes to ice. ”

“ It is certain that the snow which falls upon the surface of the sea, being in a solid state, and, bulk for bulk, lighter than sea-water, will not readily combine with it, but may, by a due degree of cold in the atmosphere, be speedily converted into a layer of ice. ”

“ Snow accumulating on the higher portions of the land, when compacted into ice and caused to flow downwards by gravity, gives rise, on account of its more coherent character, to continuous glaciers, which mould themselves to the slopes down which they are guided, different ice-streams converging to send forward a greater volume. ”

“ The Usefulness of Snow.—Snow, as it is well known, is a great impediment to the inroads of frost into anything enveloped by it. A covering of snow on an ice field is a great impediment to the escape of heat from the water, as well as protecting the ice from the direct action of the cold air, and greatly retards the growth of the ice. It is essential to remove this snow as early as practicable, as the ice harvester has always in view a possible thaw or rain, and endeavors to secure his crop at the earliest practicable moment. ”

“ It is supposed by those who have never seen the infinite variety of forms into which frost converts mist and dew and all manner of water, that there must be a monotony in those vast expanses of snow and ice. ”

“ I am aware that all authorities agree in preferring ice to incoherent snow, but when the ice slope is measured by hundreds of feet, and when the northern couloir of the "Lion," swept by the afternoon avalanches, is below, I will frankly confess that any snow, however bad, is a delight, and its treacherous aid most thankfully accepted. ”

“ We sunk at every step almost knee-deep in the snow, and though we found tolerable footing at the bottom, yet the weak parts of the ice not being discoverable, we were constantly exposed to the risk of breaking through it. ”