When in mid-winter, pond, lake, and river are covered with a glittering icy coat of mail, when the rushing babble of the little brook sounds strangely muffled and restrained because of its icy fetters, then we know that all nature is once more in the stern, iron grasp of winter, which brings with its piercing icy breath, great discomfort, as well as charm and exhilaration to all.
For who has not at some time in their lives revelled in the wonderful, joyous pleasures of skating? The ice crystal-clear beneath our polished steel, as we glided bird-like, swiftly over the polished, mirror-like pond beneath us. What exhilaration and glow we found in the fascinating sport. But how seldom, if ever, did we give a thought to the wonderful formation, and the beauties of that crystal surface beneath our flying feet, or did we dream that every bit of that ice was cemented and joined together in exquisite mosaic-like patterns, formed by countless millions of tiny ice flowers, far too delicate and small to be seen by the naked eye. This wonderful process of ice formation goes on, as Lowell so charmingly writes:
“All night by the white stars’ frosty gleams
He groined his arches and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars
As the lashes of light that trim the stars;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt.”
110. Feathery type