In the application of her own principles, Nature often transcends the human imagination; her acts are bolder than our predictions. It is thus with the motion of glaciers; it was thus at the Montanvert on the day now referred to. The floors, even where the windows appeared well closed, were covered with a thin layer of fine snow; and some of the mattresses in the bedrooms were coated to the depth of half an inch with this fine powder. Given a chink through which the finest dust can pass, dry snow appears competent to make its way through the same fissure. It had also been beaten against the windows, and clung there like a ribbed drapery. In one case an effect so singular was exhibited, that I doubted my eyes when I first saw it. In front of a large pane of glass, and quite detached from it, save at its upper edge, was a festooned curtain formed entirely of minute ice-crystals. It appeared to be as fine as muslin; the ease of its curves and the depth of its folds being such as could not be excelled by the intentional arrangement of ordinary gauze. The frost-figures on some of the window-panes were also of the most extraordinary character: in some cases they extended over large spaces, and presented the appearance which we often observe in London; but on other panes they occurred in detached clusters, or in single flowers, these grouping themselves together to form miniature bouquets of inimitable beauty. I placed my warm hand against a pane which was covered by the crystallization, and melted the frostwork which clung to it. I then withdrew my hand and looked at the film of liquid through a pocket-lens. The glass cooled by contact with the air, and after a time the film commenced to move at one of its edges; atom closed with atom, and the motion ran in living lines through the pellicle, until finally the entire film presented the beauty and delicacy of an organism. The connexion between such objects and what we are accustomed to call the feelings may not be manifest, but it is nevertheless true that, besides appealing to the pure intellect of man, these exquisite productions can also gladden his heart and moisten his eyes.
[Sidenote: THE MER DE GLACE IN WINTER. 1859.]