Icy Jewels of the Winter Storms
Billions of Perfectly Symmetrical Snowflakes, Falling in Each Storm, Furnish Vast Field for Nature-Made Designs
By W. A. BENTLEY
Forty-five years ago my mother presented me with a small microscope. Searching for something to examine under it during the cold winter of Vermont, I hit upon a snow crystal, and for nearly half a century I have been looking at magnified snowflakes. Larger microscopes, and then a camera attachment, to permit permanent record of the most perfect designs, were soon added to the equipment and, in the nearly half century since, I have photographed more than 4,700 different specimens.
Studying snowflakes may appear a peculiar sort of hobby to occupy one for the greater part of a lifetime, but I find it just as fascinating today as I did when I looked through my first small microscope and discovered that a snow crystal was a work of art, a formation of which no two are ever alike. Collecting snowflake likenesses is a pursuit rewarded by rich returns. Yet it must not be assumed that it is an easy task. It takes skill, patience without limit and no little hardship to get results worth while.
When good snowflakes are falling, the true lover of them forgets cold, hunger, business, exposure, all else but the marvelous glittering gems the storm clouds are showering down upon his waiting board. With keen gaze, ever roaming about over the blackboard held to receive the glittering hosts from cloudland, the collector stands out in the storm, brushing off every few moments, the flakes alighting thereon, until one or more promising specimens are secured. Quickly, then, the board is taken indoors, into a very cold room having outdoor temperature. At one side of the window and facing it, is the photo-microscopic camera (a microscope and camera combined). At the other side and also facing the window, is an observation microscope, having a cold glass slide. The blackboard, sprinkled over with snowflakes. is taken first to the observation microscope, and a few of its most promising snow jewels removed from it. This is accomplished by pressing very gently the point of a sharp wooden splint upon the face of the snow crystal until it adheres to it. It is then jarred off onto the glass slide. A nervous or unsteady hand spells disaster, for the least pressure crushes the flake.
From now on, the utmost haste must be used, because evaporation soon wears away the crystals. One brief glimpse of each is taken, holding the breach meanwhile, and if a masterpiece is revealed, it is pressed down flat upon the glass slide, by means of the edge of a feather, the slide placed on the stage of the photo-microscope, quickly centered and photographed, an exposure of from ten to 100 seconds being given according to time of day, cloudiness, magnification, and power of
