Snowfall

“ Most of us have given little time or very serious thought to the study of the snow, and the marvellous detail which goes to fashion the individual snow crystal. In fact, if we live in a crowded city, we are inclined to look upon a heavy snowfall as something of a nuisance, to be shovelled and carted away as expeditiously as may be by the army of men employed by the city for that purpose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We had a fall of snow last night, and it dripped in here so that the bag became wet. This constant snowfall, which will not turn to rain, is enough to make one despair. It generally takes the form of a thick layer of new snow on the top of the old, and this delays the thaw.
“This wind seems to have formed some lanes in the ice again, and there is a little more bird-life. We saw some little auks again yesterday; they came from the south, probably from land. ”

“ The gale had hardly been blowing for ten or fifteen minutes, when the snow began to whirl down. It came in the tiniest possible flakes, consisting this time of short needles that looked like miniature spindles, strung with the smallest imaginable globules of ice—no six-armed crystals that I could find so far. Many a snowstorm begins that way with us. And there was even here, in the chasm of the road, a swing and dance to the flakes that bespoke the force of the wind above. ”

“ The thaw seemed to have ceased and an icy wind got up, moaning dismally in the tree-tops. The river, which had been always rather narrow, widened out within a sort of gorge of rocks and brushwood. The bed of it began to slope slightly in a long series of what would be rapids when the water was flowing, and then, on a turn, they came to the rocky dip of a high waterfall. Frozen it was still, of course. One mass of ice and snow. Rather a terrible place in the strange stillness of its hold-up. And everywhere rocks--rocks and steep, difficult places blending with the forest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By many busy hands is shorn;
Autumn’s ripe fruits, an ample store,
Are gathered in for rich and poor. WINTER
Winter’s cold frost and northern blast—
This is the season that comes last:
The snow has come, the sleigh-bells ring,
And merry boys rejoice and sing. THE SNOW
Oh, see! the snow is falling now,
It powders all the trees;
Its flakes abound, and all around
They float upon the breeze.
’Tis snowing fast, and cold the blast,
But yet I hope ’twill stay:
Oh, see it blow the falling snow
In meadows far away.
Jack Frost is near, we feel him here,
He’s on his icy sled ”

“ By-and-by the snow-flakes pile more leisurely: they grow large and scattered, and come more slowly than before. The hills, that were brown, heave into sight—great, rounded billows of white. The gray woods look shrunken to half their height, and stand waving in the storm. The wind freshens, and scatters the light flakes that crown the burden of the snow; and as the day droops, a clear, bright sky of steel color cleaves the land and clouds, and sends down a chilling wind to bank the walls and to freeze the storm. ”

“ But in Winter when the cold and windy weather is coming, they fly in great flocks like clouds of huge snow-flakes, and we watch them from the window and wonder how soon the storm will follow them. And the next day or the day after, or sometimes the very day when they come, the air is white again, this time with driving snow. It comes flying past the windows, to be whirled up high by the gale and dropped again till we see the ground speckled with white, and then white everywhere except close round the big tree trunks. ”

“ A storm, which had been fiercely raging for several days, gave no signs of exhaustion.—The snow, which had been falling for fifty or sixty hours—not in a fleecy shower, but mingled with cutting particles like hail—filled the atmosphere, and with each successive gust of a stiff northwester, was whirled aloft in vast curling sheets and wreaths—or driven through the narrow streets with a force that was blinding and almost irresistible. ”

“ Winter comes suddenly, arrayed in storms, though to mountaineers silky streamers on the peaks and the tones of the wind give sufficient warning. You hear strange whisperings among the tree-tops, as if the giants were taking counsel together. One after another, nodding and swaying, calling and replying, spreads the news, until at with one accord break forth into glorious song, welcoming the first grand snowstorm of the year, and looming up in the dim clouds and snowdrifts like lighthouse towers in flying scud and spray. ”

“ The temperature rises daily in the interval; the winter fall of snow, which has so long shrouded the gaunt hills and lain upon the valleys, rolls up before the rays of the rising sun; and the melted snow pours in noisy torrents and flashing cascades through the rugged ravines and over the dark sides of the lofty cliffs: everywhere the air resounds with the din of falling waters. ”

“ The snow melts in a day or two, sometimes in a few hours, the bent branches spring up again, and all the forest work is left to the fog and the rain. At the same time, dry snow is falling on the upper forests and mountain tops. Day after day, often for weeks, the big clouds give their flowers without ceasing, as if knowing how important is the work they have to do. The glinting, swirling swarms thicken the blast, and the trees and rocks are covered to a depth of ten to twenty feet. ”

“ For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man––one man––can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.
15 A PATCH OF OLD SNOW There’s a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest. ”

“ You can have no idea of an American winter in such latitudes." (Hereupon I stirred the fire, and helped myself to a glass of toddy.) "The snow comes on at once, and the atmosphere is so loaded and thickened with drift, that you may cut it into cubes with a knife. And then the snow, which in a few hours accumulates over your dwelling to the very roof, penetrates everywhere through your wooden erection. In spite of a blazing hearth, you are shivering almost in the midst of the flame. ”

“ The wind plays strange pranks with snow; snow is the most plastic medium it has to mould into images and symbols of its moods. Here one of these promontories would slope down, and the very next one would slope upward as it advanced across the open space. In every case there had been two walls, as it were, of furious blow, and between the two a lane of comparative calm, caused by the shelter of a clump of brush or weeds, in which the snow had taken refuge from the wind’s rough and savage play. ”

“ Where the winters are long and cold and the storms are severe, immense drifts of snow collect in the hollows and cañons of the mountain slopes. Each summer all or a part of this snow melts. Upon the northern slopes the melting process is slower, and if there happens to be a large basin upon that side, an extensive field of snow remains until the winter storms come again. Each winter new snow is added to the surface, while the older snow, becoming hard and firm through repeated freezing and thawing, at last turns to ice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As soon as the sun declined towards the west, the wind increased and rose to a storm, the bank of clouds from the east began to ascend, and the dark streaks to put themselves in motion against the wind. The snow was violently driven about by partial whirlwinds, both on the ice, and from off the peaks of the high mountains, and filled the air. At the same time the ground-swell had increased so much that its effect upon the ice became very extraordinary and alarming. ”

“ As the snow began to fall, the death-like stillness of the air was broken, and a beeeze arose, which speedily increased to a gale, and by about three o’clock had become a violent tempest, drifting the thickly-falling snow from the north-west horizontally, so as almost to blind the driver and the horses, and wreathing it here and there so as completely to obliterate the track. ”

“ The creaking snow, blown down and packed hard by the southerly blizzard from the slopes above us, made the most perfect going. The ever-changing views of the broken ice-cliffs and mountain slopes drew us on. ”

“ The snow which falls then protects the herbage and winter grain from the severity of the frost, and natural roads are formed on the hardened snow, which materially facilitate the labours of the farmer and the lumberer. When the cold is extreme, the inhabitants keep within doors; and, fuel being abundant, they feel little of the severity of the frost without. As soon as a favourable change takes place in the weather, the roads and rivers are again alive with sleighs and sleds, drawn by horses, and posting at a rapid rate, in all directions, over the glassy surface of the ice ”

“ Any object that broke the wind—a stunted pine, a broken tree-trunk, a Government road-post—had at its leeward side a high, narrow snow-drift tailing off to the dead level of the plain. Where the wind dropped the snow rose at once. ”

“ Fall came, skies clouded and the rains was getting cold, and each time it cleared up again it was a little colder, the sun wasn't making as high a circle and was steady losing some of its heat, and when after a few mornings' frost the skies clouded again and the wind blowed a light snow over the high pinnacles, the bunch gradually ranged lower and lower, till, when they reached the foothills and finally the flats, the first of the winter had set in and it was time for 'em to drift to their winter range. ”

“ A sharp north wind shook the bare branches of the trees that grew thick on both sides of the way, blew the snow in the ravines, and heaped it to huge snow-drifts, which threatened the traveller unacquainted with the locality with danger.
The wind grew every moment more sharp and cutting, the snow deeper, and the difficulty greater for the tired horses to draw their weary load. ”

“ The snow lies over everything for months, until in the early spring the warm west winds begin to blow, melting the snow from one side of the mountains. Then the sun grows hotter and hotter day by day, and helps to melt it until most of the mountain slopes are clear; but in sheltered places and in the bottoms of the little hollows the snow stays in patches till far into the summer. ”

“ The grand winter storms that load the mountains with enduring fountain snow seldom set in before the end of November. The fertile clouds, descending, glide about and hover in brooding silence, as if thoughtfully examining the forests and streams with reference to the work before them; then small flakes or single crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and spirals; and soon the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make darkness like night, hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter quarters. ”

“ Clouds of snow cut off our vision of those below. Bellowing sounds rendered the world a turmoil. Swirling gusts of wind, cyclonic, threw us to our faces on the white bank where we clung, digging bleeding fingers into the icy crust of the hillside, and fearful, through wild stretches of time, that we too should be carried downward in that terrific sweep when mountains seemed upending. ”

“ Sometimes, when the snow is drifting up the pass, and the world is blank behind, before, and all around, it seems like plunging into chaos. The muffled pines loom fantastically through the drift as we rush past them, and the wind, ever and anon, detaches great masses of snow in clouds from their bent branches. ”

“ It increases, is wet and clogging, and makes a white night of midday.
There is seldom any wind with first snows, more often rain, but later, when there is already a smooth foot or two over all the slopes, the drifts begin. The late snows are fine and dry, mere ice granules at the wind’s will. Keen mornings after256 a storm they are blown out in wreaths and banners from the high ridges sifting into the cañons.
Once in a year or so we have a “big snow.” The cloud tents are widened out to shut in the valley and an outlying range or two and are drawn tight against the sun. ”