_Observables in figur’d _Snow_._
Exposing a piece of black Cloth, or a black Hatt to the falling _Snow_, I
have often with great pleasure, observ’d such an infinite variety of
curiously figur’d _Snow_, that it would be as impossible to draw the Figure
and shape of every one of them, as to imitate exactly the curious and
Geometrical _Mechanisme_ of Nature in any one. Some coorse draughts, such
as the coldness of the weather, and the ill provisions, I had by me for
such a purpose, would permit me to make, I have here added in the Second
_Figure_ of the Eighth _Scheme_.[12]
In all which I observ’d, that if they were of any regular Figures, they
were always branched out with six principal branches, all of equal length,
shape and make, from the center, being each of them inclin’d to either of
the next branches on either side of it, by an angle of sixty degrees.
Now, as all these stems were for the most part in one flake exactly of the
same make, so were they in differing Figures of very differing ones; so
that in a very little time I have observ’d above an hundred several cizes
and shapes of these starry flakes.
The branches also out of each stem of any one of these flakes, were exactly
alike in the same flake; so that of whatever Figure one of the branches
were, the other five were sure to be of the same, very exactly, that is, if
the branchings of the one were small _Perallelipipeds_ or Plates, the
branchings of the other five were of the same; and generally, the
branchings were very conformable to the rules and method observ’d before,
in the Figures on _Urine_, that is, the branchings from each side of the
stems were parallel to the next stem on that side, and if the stems were
plated, the branches also were the same; if the stems were very long, the
branches also were so, &c.
Observing some of these figur’d flakes with a _Microscope_, I found them
not to appear so curious and exactly figur’d as one would have imagin’d,
but like Artificial Figures, the bigger they were magnify’d, the more
irregularities appear’d in them; but this irregularity seem’d ascribable to
the thawing and breaking of the flake by the fall, and not at all to the
defect of the _plastick_ virtue of Nature, whose curiosity in the formation
of most of these kind of regular Figures, such as those of _Salt_,
_Minerals_, &c. appears by the help of the _Microscope_, to be very many
degrees smaller then the most acute eye is able to perceive without it. And
though one of these six-branched Stars appear’d here below much of the
shape described in the Third _Figure_ of the Eighth _Scheme_; yet I am very
apt to think, that could we have a sight of one of them through a
_Microscope_ as they are generated in the Clouds before their Figures are
vitiated by external accidents, they would exhibit abundance of curiosity
and neatness there also, though never so much magnify’d: For since I have
observ’d the Figures of _Salts_ and _Minerals_ to be some of them so
exceeding small, that I have scarcely been able to perceive them with the
_Microscope_, and yet have they been regular, and since (as far as I have
yet examin’d it) there seems to be but one and the same cause that produces
both these effects, I think it not irrational to suppose that these pretty
figur’d Stars of _Snow_, when at first generated might be also very regular
and exact.