The first warm Snows of August and September (says Dr. Kane), falling
on a thickly-bleached carpet of grasses, heaths, and willows, enshrine
the flowery growths which nestle round them in a non-conducting air
chamber; and as each successive snow increases the thickness of the
cover, we have, before the intense cold of winter sets in, a light
cellular bed covered by drift, seven, eight, or ten feet deep, in which
the plant retains its vitality. Dr. Kane has proved by experiments that
the conducting power of the snow is proportioned to its compression
by winds, rains, drifts, and congelation. The drifts that accumulate
during nine months of the year are dispersed in well-defined layers
of different density. We have first the warm cellular snows of fall,
which surround the plant; next the finely-impacted snow-dust of winter;
and above these the later humid deposits of spring. In the earlier
summer, in the inclined slopes that face the sun, as the upper snow is
melted and sinks upon the more compact layer below it is to a great
extent arrested, and runs off like rain from a slope of clay. The plant
reposes thus in its cellular bed, safe from the rush of waters, and
protected from the nightly frosts by the icy roof above it.