Mother Nature's Jewels


                Under a microscope, a snowflake looks like an exquisite jewel, cut by the finest, most highly skilled craftsman out of the purest diamond. Its pattern is intricate, delicate and flawless. Its surface is clear and smooth and irresistibly touchable. You want to pluck it right out of the picture and string it on a necklace, hang it from your shirt and show off its beauty to the world, or just hold it in your hand.
 

                And to think, we have billions and billions of these amazing little gems fall to our earth every year! They’re heaped up on the curbs and on the rooftops. They weigh down tree branches and bury sidewalks. There are untold numbers of them, even in the smallest space.

                But what if it were your job to collect, examine and catalog each and every one of them?

                Well? What are you standing around for? Get going!

                Actually, there are people who make a fascinating study doing just that, believe it or not, and, between them, they’ve created a collection of some of the most beautiful pictures in the world.

                It all started nearly a hundred years ago, with a man named Wilson Alwyn Bentley, who also went by the very suitable nickname of “Snowflake”. The story goes that when he was a kid, his mother gave him an old microscope. He started studying all kinds of stuff under it, but the thing that caught his eye, was the magnificent, miniscule snowflake.

                He simply had to record these visions so he could share them with others, but attempts at drawing them were futile. He couldn’t do it fast enough. No one could. Snowflakes are what scientists call “sublime”, meaning they phase from a solid state directly to a gaseous state, skipping the liquid state altogether. In other words, they vanish really quickly.

                That’s how Wilson came to be standing over a microscope with a camera on hand trying to photograph snow.

                It took some experimentation, and some trial and error, but he did it. Wilson developed and perfected a method creating breathtaking close-up photos of these jewels that many others of us may never otherwise have the chance to see. This was his gift to the world.

                In his lifetime, he produced over 5000 of these stunning photographs, and the thing is, no two of them are exactly alike. That’s where we get the long-held notion that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Wilson even wrote an article, once, arguing that point. Clearly, there are an incredible number of different pattern configurations in that snow bank out there, but, as amazing as Wilson’s accomplishments were, that’s still only 5000 snowflakes out of billions and billions. So how can we possibly know that no two snowflakes are alike?

                Well, the truth is we can’t. Not really. But the beautiful patterns the snowflakes take on are created by the various temperatures and conditions the snow crystals experience on their way to the earth. Each snowflake’s design depends upon its individual path from cloud to ground. Since it’s highly unlikely that two different snowflakes could follow the precise same path, it would be extremely rare to find two identical flakes.

                In recent years, however, someone has claimed to have beaten those odds and found the elusive matching flakes.

                Anyway, it’s been more than a century since Wilson celebrated his first successful snowflake photo, and since then, photography equipment has made some huge advances, allowing for even more breath-taking photography. Check out this article full of amazing and unbelievable photos.

                Here’s a little snowflake trivia for you. Did you know that snow isn’t really white? It just looks like that because of the way the light reflects off the myriad sides of the complex little crystals. Actually, snow is as clear as glass.

                So, enjoy the winter, and the next time you’re tempted to complain about the back-break of clearing your walk, think about all those miraculous little beauties on the end of your shovel.

 

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