When a staff
was struck into the new-fallen drift, the hollow seemed instantly to
fill with a soft blue liquid, while the snow adhering to the staff took
a complementary color of pinkish yellow, and on moving it up and down
it was hard to resist the impression that a pink flame was rising and
sinking in the hole. The little natural furrows in the drifts appeared
faintly blue, the ridges were gray, while the parts most exposed to
view seemed least illuminated, and as if a light brown dust had been
sprinkled over them. The fresher the snow, the more marked the colors,
and it made no difference whether the sky were cloudless or foggy. Thus
was every white peak decked upon its brow with this tiara of ineffable
beauty.
The impression is very general that the average quantity of snow has
greatly diminished in America; but it must be remembered that very
severe storms occur only at considerable intervals, and the Puritans did
not always, as boys fancy, step out of the upper windows upon the snow.
In 1717, the ground was covered from ten to twenty feet, indeed; but
during January, 1861, the snow was six feet on a level in many parts of
Maine and New Hampshire, and was probably drifted three times that depth
in particular spots. The greatest storm recorded in England, I believe,
is that of 1814, in which for forty-eight hours the snow fell so
furiously that drifts of sixteen, twenty, and even twenty-four feet were
recorded in various places.
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