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Wilson Bentley Digital ArchivesNewsletters
Archives Snow Crystals Vol. #11 12/21/04 Snow Crystals Vol. #10 11/21/03 Snow Crystals vol. #3 - 1/31/00
Editors note Bentley Birthday Bust by Wayne Howe Editors note by Peter Wolf Well, another year has past and Bentley's Birthday is tomorrow, February 7th (Recent discovery that his birthdate is the 7th, not the 9th, as previously believed) with a welcome snow replacing the rain we had most of January. One-hundred forty-three years ago Wilson Bentley was born on the Jericho farm where he lived his entire life. We continue our Jericho Center Weather conditions which are updated to a
web page every 15 minutes and historical weather data charts are also viewable. Bentley would record the weather conditions in a notebook throughout the day, each day, his whole life. Our current weather station records data automatically and I wonder if Bentley would rely on the new technology or the "old school" ways of manually recording the data?.
There is a Snowflake Celebration Feb 9th at The Community Center in Jericho Center celebrating Snowflake Bentley’s 143rd Birthday!! The celebration is at the Jericho Center Green - Saturday, February 9th, 2008, 9am-12pm.SCHEDULE OF EVENTS -9am Family Snowshoe Trek (BYO snowshoes), 9:30-11 Sled Dog Demo & Limited Rides for Children (Limited rides for 6-12 year olds with parental, 10-11 Crafts for Children, 10:00 Presentation by Elaine Salsbury -Snowflake Bentley’s Life, 10:30 Presentation by Stu Hall Photographing Snowflakes, 11:00 Community Snow Angel Flop, 11:30 Snowflake Bentley’s 143rd Birthday Celebration! Snowflake Bentley Look-a-Like Contest, Birthday Cupcakes, Fiddling, Sing-a-Long Sponsored by and Raffle to benefit The Community Center in Jericho For more information contact: Orelyn Emerson 899-3853 Ray Miglionico from Vermont Snowflakes recently acquired a photo of Bentley that we have never seen before and we present it for the first time here. We have an article by Duncan Blanchard "Jean Thompson in Jericho", and a fascinating article from Jon Nelson "Mr Bentley’s Electric Crystals". We also received some new information from Wayne Howe on the discovery of Bentley's actual birthdate. We still are getting a steady stream of requests for photos for publications ranging from news and magazine articles to textbooks and holiday cards from various companies. We are also looking for teaching materials on Bentley and snow, so please share your lesson plans/units with others through the message board or email us. As always, purchases at the Gift Shop and The Old Red Mill help preserve the legacy of Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Thanks to everyone who supported us this past holiday season!!! If you would like to contribute writings to this newsletter please Bentley Birthday Bust by Wayne Howe A careful reading of the town records have revealed that Wilson Bentley’s birthday is February 7th, rather than February 9th as recorded in books and biographies. Susan Merriam discovered the error when she read the original entriy with town clerk Jessica Alexander. “The date is clearly recorded as February 7th in beautiful script,” says Merriam, “someone else copied it incorrectly.” In Bentley’s time children were born at home and townspeople would come in to the Town Clerk’s the next time they were in the village. With so much written with the wrong information we expect February 9th will still be the commonly accepted birthdate, but you now know the real story, Bentley was born on February 7th. Jean Thompson in Jericho by Duncan C. Blanchard Jean Thompson wanted to learn all she could about frost and snow crystals, and there was no better teacher than Wilson Bentley. Jean, two years younger than Bentley, and a writer of children’s stories, first arrived in Jericho about 1904. She had married Henry Thompson in New York City in 1895, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1912. Jean and her husband had an income that let them enjoy life and to enter into the revelry of high society. She enjoyed beautiful clothes and the excitement of travel. They were friends of Charles Sanborn, the coffee man, and at times were guests on his yacht. Henry loved the good life and may have brought about the divorce by paying too much attention to other women at parties. They had no children and Jean never married again. In later years, Jean’s sister’s children joked that after the divorce she hated all males, even those only ten years old, for they had only one thing in mind. Jean arrived in Jericho near the beginning of a successful career as a writer. She had not published many articles, but in later years would write at least five books, many poems, children’s plays, and nearly one hundred magazine articles. Her income went up and down like a roller coaster, but she enjoyed a steady reputation as a children’s writer who told exciting stories about animals and the beauty that nature paints on her huge canvas of the atmosphere. Jean’s numerous articles on snow and frost were so well-known that she was called The Jack Frost Lady. While doing research for these articles she must have heard of Wilson Bentley. A desire to know more about snow crystals and frost brought her to Jericho and Bentley. For several summers she was a guest at Amy Nash’s boarding house on a side road that ran into the Nashville road barely half a mile west of Bentley’s house. It was a short walk between the two houses. Jean Thompson must have made the walk many times to visit Bentley and learn about frost, snow crystals, clouds, and nature’s other wonders of the atmosphere. The boarding house could not have been very large, for Amy Nash was also running a farm and taking care of her aging parents and her brother’s motherless children. Though Bentley’s mother was living at the time of Jean Thompson’s arrival, the sight of this smartly-dressed city woman going to visit Bentley must have set tongues awagging among the neighbors, some of whom had never traveled more than a dozen miles from Jericho. Bentley, after all, had long been and was now one of the few eligible bachelors in the eastern part of Jericho. Bentley lived in one side of a large farmhouse. His brother Charles and his wife and children lived on the other side. They too must have wondered about Wilson’s involvement with this woman. Was it really just to exchange ideas on the water wonders of the atmosphere? How many visits does it take to do that? Their children, sensing the questions in the minds of their parents, were well aware of the presence of Jean Thompson. Amy, one of Bentley’s nieces, remembering her said: “Oh yes. Yes. He used to talk with her and she’d come overt here and see him a whole lot. . . . And I‘ll tell you a little joke. He was always playing jokes on people on April Fool’s Day. So one time they fixed up a joke on him. They told him she was coming and that she would be in Essex Junction. He got all dressed up and went to Essex Junction and she wasn’t there. But you know, he wasn’t even mad about that. . . . Yes, he was quite interested in her.”
Ruth Nash, a niece who was brought up by Amy Nash, and about age twenty when Jean Thompson came to board with her aunt, had less charitable things to say about Jean: “She was quite a [man chaser]. . . . Lots of people flirt for the fun of it. My aunt was disgusted with her. My brother and I just felt that Willie was nice to her and he was nice to everyone. . . . Unless I size Willie up wrongly, he never would have brought a woman like her into his mother’s home. Willie did not flirt. He was one of the serious minded people. . . . Mrs. Thompson spent several summers at Aunt Amy’s and one winter visit. She probably is not of this world, but if she is, she will show up and try to horn in. So watch out. Her big interest used to be money, and I do not think she has changed any. . . . Aunt Amy heard plenty about Mrs. T., and she and grandmother did not like it. When she wrote the third year, there was no room for her. She tried to keep up the correspondence, but Aunt Amy did not answer. None of the Nash’s liked her. So I would just write her out of the picture.” Willie Bentley may indeed have been “one of the serious minded people.” But he clearly did not share the Nash’s opinions of Jean Thompson. On February 20, 1907, in the first of only three surviving letters of the many they exchanged, Bentley wrote: “Dear Mrs. Thompson, Yours, telling of the operation you underwent, & of your continued activities in a literary way, came duly to hand. I am glad to learn you are so well as to resume literary labors, altho [sic] doubtful of its wisdom just now, untill [sic] you give those eyes a good rest. I note with pleasure that Mrs. Stuart is to come for a stay with Amy Nash, & of course I shall go over and play for her if she cares to hear my amateurish melodies. Much has happened to me since writing you. On Feb 5 I secured the largest and most beautiful & valuable set of snow crystals that I ever secured from a single storm. Many odd rare ones, which I greatly prize. On the 15th I went to Burlington & heard Prof. Moore, Chief of the Weather Bureau, lecture on Meteorology. You can imagine my pleasure when he threw some of my snow crystals on the screen, & spoke so highly of them. His references to me and my work were very flattering indeed. He seems to be a very bright forceful man, & I was very glad to meet him. I presented him with a souvenir of Vermont, & of his visit, an album containing many of the choicer snow & frost forms secured this winter. He was greatly pleased and interested in it. Well, one lecture has come to me unsolicited, & I of course will deliver it, one on snow crystals, before the ”Social Club” of St. Albans, Vt. Kindly write me soon, that I may know how you are, & of your work. With
kind regards, Jean Thompson replied to Bentley’s letter about a month later, and on April 8 Bentley wrote again. In this letter, even more than in the first one, it is abundantly clear that he held none of the Nash’s devastatingly negative opinions toward her. Several parts of Bentley’s long letter have been eliminated. Dear Mrs. Thompson, Your letter, so full of good news, came to hand today, & gave me much pleasure, indeed. I am indeed enthusiastic over your prospects. They seem very bright, & I hope & trust no cloud will come to dim them. I am especially pleased at your prospects in regard to writing a new juvenile book. Hope you will succeed in securing contract for it, & will come & spend some of the beautiful summer days with us here in Nashville, while writing it. I am hammering away on the text of my own book, “Forms of Water,” and making some progress thereon. . . . I am much interested in your account regarding the book man and my autobiography. Hope I shall have the pleasure of returning the compliment sometime, & of giving some of those Encyclopedia fellows a sketch of yourself. But I have little hope, because they surely prefer to hunt you up yourself, & to hear from your own lips, & and through the medium of that charming voice of yours. I am also pleased & interested regarding those photographs for Magazine advertising purposes. It must be pleasing to you, & to whom would it not to sit for a photo to be used thus. I feel sure they will be good, & only wish one of them might be reproduced within the book “Water Wonders” so I might see it. . . . I am exceedingly sorry to learn that your eyes are no better. . . . When writing, you should print but little. I am awaiting with great pleasure, the arrival of your book, which you have so kindly promised me. Very Truly yours, W. A. Bentley
This letter is remarkable not only in revealing Bentley’s warm feelings toward Jean Thompson and the imminent publication of her book, but we learn for the first time about the writing of Bentley’s own book. He mentioned his book not only here and in his next letter to her but not in the rest of his surviving letters or in his published articles. What happened to this 1907 attempt at a book remains shrouded in mystery; it was never published and no manuscript has ever been found. Jean Thompson and Wilson Bentley clearly had a mutual admiration society going, for she had talked to publishers or agents about having Bentley write his autobiography, and he looked forward to returning “the compliment “ by writing about her, but was certain that others would rather hear it “through the medium of that charming voice of yours.” He hoped one of the pictures she sat for would appear in her book “so that I might see it.” This might have been a gentle hint to send her picture to him should it not appear in the book. Just over two weeks later, on April 26, Bentley received her book in the mail. Her picture was not in it. He read it and, later that day, sat down and penned the last of his surviving letters to Jean Thompson. Though he could not possibly have been aware of it, some of what he said in that letter suggested a reason why his own book was never published. His letter has been edited for brevity. Dear Mrs. Thompson, Your book “Water Wonders” which you so kindly sent me, came to hand today, & I had to sit down at once & read it through, & to feast my eyes upon the beautiful illustrations which it contains [Bentley’s own photographs!]. It is indeed a little beauty, & I am hoping that the number of copies sold will far exceed your utmost expectations, & bring you in handsome returns. You have added much and greatly improved the text, since I have seen the same, & this gave me an added pleasure while reading it. It contains some errors, as I suppose all books do, but you have done finely in writing up subjects unfamiliar to you, ie, of which you have not made special studies in, & have presented them in a charming way, & are to appeal & reach the understanding of the young, & the average unscientific reader. What a beautiful book it makes, . . . I can imagine now what a thing of beauty my own book will be when issued, & it makes me almost impatient that it must wait so many months, before coming from the press. Yet it will be the better for it, of that I am sure. . . . As I write, the snow is falling, & there is already 2 inches on the ground. Permit me in closing, to heartily congratulate you on the successful publication of your book. I can imagine what intense pleasure must have been yours, when the first copy was in your hands.
Very Truly yours, W. A. Bentley
Water Wonders, the “little beauty” so admired by Bentley, was Jean Thompson’s first book. Published by Doubleday as the eighth book in what presumably was a prestigious series on a variety of topics under the general title of “The Every Child Should Know Books,” Water Wonders was a 233-page account of the forms of water in the atmosphere and on the ground. She wrote extensively about dew, frost, snow crystals, and the formation of raindrops. Her eloquent and graceful prose was accompanied by no less than 154 photographs, all taken by Bentley. Not only were his photographs sprinkled liberally throughout her book, but so were his ideas, especially those on snow crystals and raindrops. Thompson’s book gave abundant testimony that the several summers she spent in Jericho learning from Bentley were not wasted. The master had taught his student well. Bentley had seen an earlier draft of the book but not the final one. One senses his disappointment at not seeing the final draft when, immediately after saying he had read and enjoyed the book, he writes that “it contains some errors.” But he does not dwell on this bit of mild, implied criticism and softens it somewhat by saying he supposes that all books contain some errors, especially if the authors, like herself, are writing about subjects of which they are unfamiliar. Bentley is correct in saying she had presented her ideas in a “charming way.” She came to Jericho and Bentley an accomplished and competent writer who was his equal at crafting eloquent prose that painted vivid word pictures with metaphor and simile. She wrote that “the snow crystal is most ethereal, born in the vast spaces of the heavens, fashioned by the changing clouds and vapors, its lullaby the hoarse crooning of the “mighty blizzard.” To her, thunder is “Heaven’s artillery,” and the retreating clouds from a thunderstorm “leaden, ominous curtains . . . swept aside.” Although published as a children’s book, it must have taken a highly precocious child to fully appreciate the ideas and beauty that covered its pages. Throughout the book Thompson used quotations from Shakespeare. Whittier, Lowell, and lesser known writers. Bentley observed correctly that it should appeal not only to young people but to the “average unscientific reader.” The book did well, and probably attracted readers of all ages. It was still in print ten years after its publication. Editors of Jean Thompson’s many magazine articles during that time were quick to remind readers that she was the author of Water Wonders. The success of her book is quite possibly the reason why Bentley’s was never published. For what publisher would be willing to gamble on another similar book, especially when Bentley had contributed most of his best photographs to Wonders and many of his ideas about the forms of water in the atmosphere. His book probably was doomed the first day Jean Thompson showed up in Jericho. After their summers of working together, can we conclude, as did Amy, her brothers and sisters, and possibly the Nash’s, that there may have been a romantic attachment between Bentley and Jean Thompson? Probably not. It seems unlikely. Clearly, they shared a passion in sensing the beauty of nature’s atmospheric wonders and wanting to share that with others, but that was it. Both in their early forties, they were far to set in ways that were worlds apart. He cared little for how he dressed, had no desire to travel far from Jericho, and lived only for the next winter’s treasures of the snow. But Jean Thompson liked to dress well, traveled extensively, and wanted to write about other things than the snow crystals. No one seems to know how much they interacted after the publication of Water Wonders, though there had to be some, because many of her magazine articles were illustrated with his photographs. In his photographic notebook, in February of 1916, Bentley included her name along with others in a list of people to whom he wanted to send reprints of his latest articles. Jean Thompson died many years after Bentley. Of the extensive correspondence that must have existed at the time of her death, little has survived. But among it were reprints of Bentley’s articles, several newspaper accounts of his death, and the three letters he sent her in 1907. Duncan C. Blanchard January 2008 See the Snowflakes at Sax by Wayne Howe The snowflakes that adorned Sax Fifth Avenue in New York City were stunning. The huge electric display of snowflakes, all based on Bentley’s photographs, creates a magical feeling on the street in the heart of mid-town Manhattan. A few pedestrians were so taken with the spectacle that they filmed it and put it on YouTube. You can view it at that site by entering Sax Fifth Avenue Snowflakes in the search window. Mr Bentley’s Electric Crystals by Jon Nelson Wilson A. Bentley was captivated by the beauty of snow crystals for most of his life. Perhaps then it should not be too surprising that he pondered the physical cause of their symmetry and intricacy. In doing so, he turned his mind to electricity. He considered that the crystalline surfaces had electric charges, with more charges concentrated at branch tips1. When the tips of the branches overflowed with charge, the charges dribbled down the sides to produce ‘growth nuclei’ for the sidebranches. This process, he argued, could explain the symmetry of snow crystals: "That the crystals, when permitted, attain to such a marvelous degree of symmetry and complicity, shows that the alignment of the
growth nuclei, presumably tiny electric charges, is symmetrically regular to an
almost unbelievable degree." Here he connects electricity to the formation of sidebranches and the branch symmetry. In other writings, he connects snow electricity to growth rate, and snow electricity to lightning. In the specifics he was wrong, but in general he was surprisingly prescient. Snow crystals are indeed electric crystals, and the electricity itself is captivating. To see why, consider some of the amazing things that Mr Bentley’s electric crystals can do. It has been known, at least since Benjamin Franklin's experiments, that lightning in clouds is an electrical discharge. As for the charging, in 1860, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) suggested that the falling rain in the thundercloud was the charging current. However, Thomson did not specify how the drops got charged. For a long time, nobody even suspected ice as a player. But in 1904, Mr Bentley asserted that, one, much of the rain in thunderstorms is, in fact, melted snow, and two, the snow is the source of the electricity. Other suggested mechanisms came and went. Yet it wasn’t for another 75 years before experiments and observations made it clear that indeed the electricity in ice is the main source of cloud electricity. Although the details of Bentley’s idea are inconsistent with current knowledge of crystal growth and thunderstorms, we should still give him credit for nominating electric crystals as the key player in thunderstorm electricity. The current knowledge is this. When left by themselves, ice crystals apparently have negative charges on their surfaces and equal but opposite charges somewhere inside. As Bentley guessed, the amount of charge on the surface seems to increase when the crystals grow, with the greatest charging possibly being on the delicately branched crystals. When these crystals drift upward in a thundercloud, some of them ricochet off their larger, and blobbier, glazed-ice brethren, the hail particles. On average, they shed a little of this surface negative charge in the collision, leaving them with net positive charge and the hail with net negative charge. In each collision, about 10 to 100 thousand negative charges may be transferred. The large, negatively charged hail particles fall lower, and the small, positively charged ice crystals continue to drift upward until they can go no higher (about 6 miles above ground). Here, in the cloud’s upper reaches, a fist-sized volume of air may have tens of thousands of the crystals, so even if each crystal has only a little bit of excess charge, their cumulative charge can be huge. The ice collisions thus separate massive amounts of charge, putting negative charges near cloud bottom and positive charges near cloud top. This is analogous to rubbing a rubber balloon on your head: Each time a hair scrapes against rubber, the hair looses a little negative charge to the rubber. It may not be much, but the cumulative effect of many hairs and many rubs can transfer enough negative charge that, upon removing the balloon, you can hear the crackle of tiny sparks. In the thundercloud, it takes less than 30 minutes for these crystals to accumulate enough charge in the upper reaches for a spark to start. From the initial spark, one or more lightning bolts follow. Mr Bentley’s crystals can put on quite a show! So, think about these little crystals for a moment – not only do they dazzle us with their beauty when they fall as snow, not only do they shape the land when they stack up in glaciers, but they also create the largest sparks in the world, sparks that have temperatures higher than anywhere else on Earth. Not bad for a tiny flake of frozen water. Not bad at all. But that is not the only way the ice flakes show their electrical colors. The same charge exchange that happens with hail also happens whenever snow blows against something. In the windy plains, snow blowing against wire fences can deposit so much charge that the poor creature that gets too close to the fence may get knocked down by a spark2. Elsewhere, tent-bound persons in a night-time blizzard have been known to see an electrical glow appear when they place their hand near the tent wall. In this case, each snow crystal that hits the tent charges the fabric a little bit more. The fact that a diffuse glow occurs instead of a spark is likely due to the tent fabric being a poor electrical conductor. This means that the current to the hand is slower and occurs over a broader path – a glow instead of a spark. A similar thing happens when an airplane flies through an icy cloud. The electrical discharge in this case is called St. Elmo’s fire, and it occurs on the outside of the plane. And sometimes, we just hear snow’s electrical effects, as when snow blowing against antennas create radio static. These are just a few of the ways to experience Mr Bentley’s electrical crystal show.
In many materials, the charges are carried
by electrons. But the electrons in the H2O molecule are essentially
stuck, unable to leave the molecule. Nevertheless, the hydrogens, which stick
out like Mickey Mouse ears, have excess positive charge, whereas Mickey’s
‘chin’ has a corresponding excess of negative charge, as shown in (d). This +/–
asymmetry makes H2O a polar molecule. Now, there are two ways that
the polarity leads to a flow of electrical charge. Consider the charge flow as
a dance; the oxygen and hydrogen are the partners, and the partners have two
dance steps: the ‘hand-off’ and the ‘twist’. In the hand-off, a hydrogen from one molecule is “handed-off” to the next molecule. If both molecules were originally electrically neutral, as in (e) below, the resulting hand-off (green-black arrow) creates a negative charge (OH-) and a positive charge (H3O+). Subsequently, a hand-off to OH- (or from H3O+) effectively moves the charge through the ice. When two crystals collide, OH- on the surface move from one crystal to another. The reason for the abundance of OH- on the surface is still a mystery, but the twist is probably crucial. In the twist, a water molecule rotates,
effectively removing a hydrogen from one bond and transferring it to another.
In the first twist in (f) below, the Bernal-Fowler bond rule gets broken twice:
an ‘empty’ bond and a ‘double’ bond are created. In the second twist, the
double-bond moves. The empty and double bonds are viewed as two types of charges,
but personally, I have trouble viewing them this way. Instead, I think of the
charges as arising from a coordinated dance move: When a chain of molecules do
the twist, the end result is that the hydrogen positions have become a little more lined up. If we straighten out such a chain, as in (g) below, then the “+” in one Mickey-Mouse ear matches up with a “-” in a chin and the two cancel each
other out. Only the “+”s on top and the “–”s on the bottom remain. In reality,
the cancellations aren’t perfect, but the effect is the same: the “+”s on top
pull on the OH- In a way, the electricity inside snow crystals is just as captivating as their beauty outside. As we still do not know much about the electrical processes on the inside and the crystallization processes on the outside, the two may someday be found to be closely related, as Wilson Bentley first supposed. It is perhaps not too surprising that he thought about crystal electricity – at that time, electricity was portrayed as a kind of magical fluid. Magazine advertisements boldly asserted the wonders of electrical contraptions like J. Moses’s Electro-Galvanic Spectacles, Heidelberg’s Alternating Current Electric Belt, and the many strange-sounding electrical devices of Dr. Scott. They are all gone now, but we will always have Mr Bentley’s Electric Crystals. References
Bentley Makes New York Post by Wayne Howe The New York Post existed in Bentley’s time, so he might have gotten a kick out of a recent article in the paper’s Classroom Extra section. A third of a page is devoted to Bentley’s work, as part of a series meant for classroom use. Bentley, a staunch Republican, like almost all Vermonters of his time, might still recognize the masthead of the paper from his trips through the city during speaking tours later in his life. The article features a web link to snowflake Bentley and a science experiment kids can do. |
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Editors note -The Search for Jean Thompson by Duncan Blanchard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editors note by Peter Wolf Well, another year has past and Bentley's Birthday is tomorrow, February 9th with a cold north wind blowing snow across our region. One-hundred forty-two years ago Wilson Bentley was born on the Jericho farm where he lived his entire life. As we reported last year we added a weather station in Jericho Center, just a few hundred feet from Bentley's resting place. Our top wind of 49 mph on 10/28/06 was quite a house shaker! Weather conditions are updated to a web page every 15 minutes and historical weather data charts are also viewable. I think Bentley would appreciate the new teleologies, as he recorded the weather conditions in a notebook throughout the day, each day, his whole life. I can only imagine what Bentley would think of software like Photoshop and modern computers. We have an article by Duncan Blanchard on "The Search for Jean Thompson". We also are saddened by the passing of Blair Williams, a long time Jericho resident, Historical Society founders and Bentley educator. We get a glimpse into her life through the words of Wayne Howe, Former JHS President. The newest pewter snowflake collection from Vermont Snowflakes is in the final approval stages and we give you a sneak peak of the upcoming design. We still are getting a steady stream of requests for teaching materials on Bentley and snow, so please share your lesson plans/units with others through the message board or email us. A new Bentley Games and Puzzles CD-ROM has been recently released by Wolf Multimedia Studio of Jericho. Enjoy hours of fun with snowflakes even when it’s not snowing! This new CD-ROM includes six fun and informative snowflake games and puzzles including a match and a catch the flakes games, a series of jigsaw puzzles, a maze game, snowflake exploration and gem collecting with Snowflake Bentley. The new item is available at the Old Mill Craft Shop and our online gift shop at vermontsnowflakes.com We also have a new and interesting piece by Jon Nelson "Musings on Bentley’s ‘no two alike’". We all know this statement, but what is the origin? Jon reflects on that question and asks a few more! As always, purchases at the Gift Shop help preserve the legacy of Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Thanks to everyone who supported us this past holiday season!!! If you would like to contribute writings to this newsletter please The Search for Jean Thompson The writing of a biography requires the skills of a detective and the patience of a saint. The discovery of those who played a role in the life of Wilson Bentley was very time consuming. Clues that appeared to be leading me to some of the people were often misleading and the trail had to be abandoned. Occasionally I'd find a clue that led me quickly to someone who could tell me about their connection with Bentley. But other times trails that were extremely well-marked at the start, eventually narrowed and finally disappeared. Sometimes a trail that was found purely by serendipity appeared to lead to a dead end, but by looking ahead I could see off in the distance where it picked up again. Serendipity, sometimes defined as the art of profiting from unexpected occurrences, happened twice in my search for Jean Thompson and her interaction with Bentley. The first time occurred on a day in the mid 1950s at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a few years after I had begun my career as an atmospheric scientist. A friend walked into my office with a small book in his hand., "Dunc," he said, "I've been going through some old books that I had as a child. I'm getting rid of most of them. This one is illustrated with many pictures of snowflakes. I know you're interested in snow and rain, so I thought you might like to have the book." "Sure, I'll take it," I replied. "What's one more book? I'll add it to my collection of books on weather. Many thanks." The book had been published by Doubleday in 1907, and it showed its age. The edges of the cover were dirty and frayed, and cracks appeared on the binding. The cover, once probably a deep sky blue, had faded to a pale blue. The title, in large silver letters at the top of the cover, was Water Wonders Every Child Should Know. Below that, perfectly positioned in the middle of the cover, was a large silver snowflake, and at the bottom was the author's name: Jean M. Thompson. I rapidly skimmed through the pages. Photographs of either clouds, dew, frost, raindrops, or snowflakes appeared on nearly every other page of this 230-page book. The page following the title page had this note: "I am greatly indebted to Mr. Wilson A. Bentley for valuable assistance in the arrangement of this book, and particularly for permission to reproduce the microphotographs." I recognized the name of Bentley, not so much for his photographs of snowflakes (we really should call them for what they are, snow crystals) but for his elegant measurements of raindrop size made by letting the drops fall into a pan of flour, where they would harden to form dough pellets about the same size as the raindrops. I was working on a project in which we were trying to understand how rain formed so easily in sub-tropical clouds. Bentley's flour-pellet method was one of several ways we used to measure drop size. But his photographs of snow crystals in Thompson's book had little interest for me. I put the book on my bookshelf where it laid untouched to gather dust for nearly fifteen years. In 1968 I began to think again about Bentley. Meanwhile, I had learned more about the elegant photographs he took of snow crystals at his farmhouse in Jericho, Vermont. But what was it that so motivated him to do this work year after year? Where could I learn about this? I remembered Jean Thompson's book and wondered if she could tell me about her interaction with him. If still living, I guessed she would be at least ninety years old. I wrote to Doubleday to get her address. An editor there replied that Jean Thompson had died many years ago, but for a long time Doubleday had sent royalties on her several books to her sister, Mary Dudley Smith, in Yonkers, New York. The editor gave me her address. I wasted no time in sending her a letter. The stage was now set for the second occurrence of serendipity. A month passed, then a letter arrived from Yonkers, but it was not from Mary Dudley Smith. It was from Elizabeth Sansalone, who lived at a different address from the one where I had sent my letter. In part, she wrote: "Mary Dudley Smith was my grandmother and she died 14 years ago. Since that time two other families have lived at 156 Roberts Lane. Yonkers is a city of more than 200,000 residents so there is not a small-town feeling here at all. It was only through a civic organization that the present resident and I recently became acquainted." Incredible! Imagine how the odds had been stacked against me. It was only by a chance meeting of two strangers at a civic organization that got me in contact with Elizabeth Sansalone, whose great aunt was Jean Thompson. At that meeting Elizabeth told the resident of her grandmother's house that Mary Dudley Smith had once lived there. The resident remembered the name, so when my letter arrived it was forwarded to Elizabeth. But what if my letter had arrived before Elizabeth met the occupant of what was once her grandmother's house? It would have been returned to me, and that would have been the end of the trail in my search for Jean Thompson. And what if my letter had arrived more than a month or two after the chance meeting? It's likely the occupant of the house would have forgotten the name of Elizabeth's grandmother and again returned the letter to me. In all the many years that I could have sent the letter to the Yonkers address, it was only during that narrow window of time of a couple months in 1968 that the fates decreed that I would get in touch with Elizabeth Sansalone who would tell me about Jean Thompson. Elizabeth was very helpful. She told me what the family thought about Jean, her marriage and divorce, the many books and articles she wrote, her love of travel and beautiful clothes, and how Jean, when she met Bentley, was at the beginning of a successful career as a writer for children. But best of all, Elizabeth sent me photographs of Jean and three long letters that Bentley had written to her. The letters revealed a lot, not only about Jean Thompson but about Bentley's relationship with her. In 1968 I left the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to join the scientific staff of the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center of the State University of New York in Albany. I developed new research interests, did some teaching, and worked with graduate students on their thesis research. I had long planned to write a biography of Bentley, but never seemed to find the time to do the massive amount of research that was necessary before putting words on paper. But over the next few years I published three articles about various aspects of Bentley's work. It wasn't until the early 1990s, after I had retired, that I began to work fulltime on Bentley's biography. My book The Snowflake Man was published in 1998. In the book I wrote extensively about Jean Thompson and her interaction with Wilson Bentley, using not only material supplied by Elizabeth Sansalone but with stories told to me by the late Ruth Amy Nash, who was in Jericho when Jean Thompson first showed up around 1904 or 1905. Miss Nash did not think very highly of Jean Thompson! In my essay in the next newsletter, I will write about Jean Thompson's visits to Jericho and her stormy interaction with some of Bentley's neighbors. Duncan C. Blanchard BLAIR WILLIAMS by Wayne Howe
Blair, of course, was not alone in her efforts. Myrna Lindholm, Neil Smith, Willie Corcoran, Gary Irish, Wayne Alexander and many, many others began the society and worked to purchase the Mill. Over the years they secured milling equipment, created the craft shop, began the archive, showcased Bentley's work and created a gathering place for local history. We are grateful for their efforts. Others worked, but Blair provided vision and elbow grease. As anyone who has had the pleasure (or pain) of being part of the society, those who do have the biggest vote. Needless to say, Blair had a big vote for a long, long, long time. She had qualities of other ambitious women. The pioneering spirit of back to the lander Helen Nearing, who like Blair, left the wilderness of the city to build a new life in Vermont- stone by stone. Her home is a testament to her physical and mental stamina. She had the fiery tenacity of 20th century sculptor Louise Nevelson, who frenetically created monumental works using found wooden objects. Blair was constantly in motion, rolling up her sleeves and getting things done. There is evidence of her efforts everywhere: the Mill House, where she yanked out the fence and planted the cedar hedge, the Archives, where she contributed some of the first items in the collection, the Bentley Gallery, where she was an early champion of this remarkable man, and in the Craft Shop, where she worked with Willie to generate income for the society and showcase local crafts. She pursued everyone and anything for assistance with verve, signing people up for work or contacting Senator Aiken or McGeorge Bundy for money. Her efforts have resulted in a monumental work… of local proportions. In addition to leading the restoration of the mill, she told the story of Wilson Bentley. Her efforts in the early seventies at Mount Mansfield High School brought his legacy to the present era. Blair's formal and informal presentations over the years kept the local kids interested, until children's books, high quality prints and television shows took the lead. This gathering could have taken place in the mill, since her spirit is so easily felt there. We would all gather in the cavernous second floor room. We'd hear the Brown's River rushing below us, and watch the white pines rocking in the strong winds. Inside the room, plain as it is, Blair saw something many of us could not see: a vision of a building that could tell the story of our community: two centuries of people living ordinary and extraordinary lives. That vision has been largely realized. There is a plaque at St. Paul's in London, built by Christopher Wren. It says, "If you seek a monument to me look around." That is no less true of Blair and the Mill. Those of us who visit the mill, the gallery, the archive, the craft shop, and the park are beneficiaries of a life's work that is visible and cohesive. For this the Jericho Historical Society and its neighbors give thanks for the life of Blair Williams.
Musings on Bentley’s ‘no two alike’ by Jon Nelson Bentley is famous for his phrase ’no two alike’, but what did he really mean by it? Excerpts in Duncan Blanchard’s book suggest that Bentley was usually referring to only the crystals he photographed1. Sometimes though, Bentley seems to be referring to all snow crystals. Maybe sometimes he meant it one way and sometimes the other; however, I wonder if he also had a third, and more profound, meaning in mind, a meaning suggested in his passage 2: The deeper one enters into the study of Nature, the If Nature becomes ‘broader and grander’ the deeper one looks, as he so eloquently stated, then of course every snow crystal will be unique; indeed, so too will everything else in Nature. In this meaning, ‘no two alike’ is a very condensed way of saying that Nature will always show you something new. Bentley arrived at this opinion by observing various forms of water, but he applies the idea to all of Nature. This third meaning of ‘no two alike’ reminds me of Kamo no Chomei’s opening line of his early 13th century classic of Japanese literature 3: “The river flows on unceasingly, yet the water is never the same.” Both phrases, Chomei’s and Bentley’s ‘no two alike’, can be interpreted 4 as meaning that the closer one views Nature, the more details one sees. Regardless of Bentley’s intended meaning, I prefer to think that he had this deeper interpretation in mind. As to why, in 1901, Bentley first chose his now-popular words ‘no two alike’ instead of other phrases, like ‘all are unique’, ‘every one different’, ‘no two the same’, or some other variation, we may never know, but it is curious that George E. Ohr (1857-1918), the self-proclaimed “mad potter of Biloxi” often used the same phrase to describe his unique pottery. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Bentley was aware of Ohr’s phrase; indeed, it has been said that until recently nobody outside of Biloxi had heard of the mad potter either, so it may be that the phrase had been in some popular work before Ohr and Bentley used it. If a reader can find a reference to ‘no two alike’ that predates Bentley, please let me know, for example by posting it on the Bentley message board. Compared to the other variations, the phrase Bentley chose has a certain poetic simplicity, and for all we know, he created it himself. I also wonder why people often ask “Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?” As far as I know, this ‘no two alike’ question is asked only of snow and not other nice things to look at, like roses, leaves, or pebbles. Part of the reason is that Bentley applied the phrase only to snow. But is there something special about snow that makes it the sole target of the question? The answer may be ‘yes’; for with snow, we have just a bunch of H2O molecules locked together, plain old water turned solid, and yet the designs on the crystal have both an elaborate detail that is easy to see and an obvious symmetry that makes the pattern relatively quick to grasp. Other symmetric objects are usually simple, like ball bearings, diamonds, and starfish. However, a snow crystal, in addition to its relatively uncommon six-fold symmetry (i.e., the same when rotated by 1/6 of a turn) and its mirror symmetry about each corner, contains a surprising intricacy and detail. When one sees a snow crystal for the first time, and sees all the fine lines and branches, one may naturally wonder if all crystals are somehow destined to look that way. Then one sees another crystal and notices right away that it is different but just as elaborate, and after seeing more crystals one is surprised that something as plain and pure as water can produce so much variety. Roses, leaves, and pebbles, in contrast, seem to lack one or more of these qualities of snow. We could examine each case in turn and try to determine exactly why we don’t ask the question of roses, leaves, or pebbles, but I think it all boils down to the fact that only the snow crystal has this element of surprise. Finally, is there an answer to the question? Maybe, but the answer will depend on how the words ‘snowflake’ and ‘alike’ are defined. And even when these words are precisely defined, the answer may only be a probability based on some dubious assumptions. I say dubious because we still have only a very poor understanding of how snow crystals grow under ideal laboratory conditions, never mind the actual conditions in a cloud, of which, incidentally, we also have very little knowledge. Despite these limitations, we can still have fun trying to answer the question. Some of this is discussed in the Bentley message forum, and more will probably be added soon. However, I think the more interesting question is the following: Why do snow crystals have so much obvious variety? This question is answerable. From what we now know, the best answer is that Nature has made the growth of the snow crystal to be extraordinarily sensitive to temperature and has made the clouds to have ever-changing temperatures. Or, to paraphrase Chomei, “The clouds churn on unceasingly, yet the crystal-laden air is never the same.” References
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Editors note Well, another year has past and Bentley's Birthday is tommorow, February 9th with nary a flake on the ground. One-hundred forty-six years ago Wilson Bentley was born on the Jericho farm where he lived his entire life. We recently added a new weather station in Jericho Center, just a few hundred feet from Bentley's resting place. Weather conditions are updated to a web page every 15 minutes and historical weather data charts are also viewable. I think Bentley would appreciate the information, as he recorded the weather conditions in a notebook throughout the day, each day, his whole life. We have an article by Duncan Blanchard on Bentley's Montages. We also have a new contributor, Jon Nelson, who has been a researcher of ice crystals in clouds for about 15 years, when he started his doctoral research around 1990-1991. Over the past six years, his research has been more of a part-time effort, and we welcome his contributions to the newsletter and the message board. Jon has been answering questions on snow crystals on the message board, so if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask. The newest pewter snowflake collection from Vermont Snowflakes is in the final approval stages and we give you a sneak peak of the upcoming design. Wilson Bentley’s photographs are featured in stunning fashion on a shopping bag made exclusively for the high end retailer, Sax’s Fifth Avenue in New York City. This is the second year that Bentley has graced urban shoppers in New York City with his ice gems. A recent book, Exuberance by author Kay Jamison, Includes a long story on "Snowflake" Bentley . Duncan Blanchard helped her with information about Bentley. It's a fine book in which she writes about many people who, like Bentley, showed exuberance in their work. We want to thank Sean Kelly and The Samples (thesamples.com) for usage of a few of their songs on the 2005 Bentley DVD, and especially for their tribute in a recent Burlington show to “Snowflake” Bentley, Thanks Sean. We still are getting a steady stream of requests for teaching materials on Bentley and snow, so please share your lesson plans/units with others through the message board or email us.
As always, purchases at the Gift Shop help preserve the legacy of Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Thanks to everyone who supported us this past holiday season!!! If you would like to contribute writings to this newsletter please
Bentley’s Snow Crystal Montages by Duncan Blanchard
The opening of the Pan-American Exposition in 1901 in Buffalo, New York, allowed thousands of visitors to see a sensitive artistic side of Bentley’s talents. The Exposition, the most important ever to be held in the United States up to that time, had a midway, numerous illuminated fountains, and hundreds of exhibits, both from the United States and other countries, that touched on religious, philosophical, musical, artistic, and scientific themes. It is not known with any certainty how Bentley happened to exhibit there or how much of his work was used. But it is likely he was asked to do so by the Weather Bureau. A year before, when the Bureau was making plans for their displays in the Exposition, a memo from one Bureau administrator to another said that Bentley’s photographs of snow crystals “if enlarged could possibly be suitable for exposition purposes.” Undoubtedly the large photographs were on exhibit. Their beauty must have been appreciated by all those whose eyes fell upon them, but most of the admiration had to be reserved for a single work of art.
The montage had a certain abstract quality to it. Most people looking at it probably saw first a simple six-pointed star, each of whose arms was made from five of the largest snow crystals in the montage. To keep the six-fold symmetry, Bentley placed a single crystal at the very center to be shared with each of the six arms. Superimposed on all of this, and composed of slightly smaller crystals, was a Star of David, two equilateral triangles interlaced one with the other. The six points of the Star were placed not upon but between the points of the simple star, whose six arms moved radially outward from the center. By using smaller crystals for the Star of David, Bentley achieved a three-dimensional aspect to his creation; it appeared to be set back from the simple star.
But that was not all. Toward the center of the montage, he placed thirty-six very small crystals in the form of smaller Star of David that showed only the six points. Within this, but now using much smaller crystals that showed up mainly as tiny dots, were two more modified Stars of David, interlaced but still surrounding the crystal at the very center. The decreasing size of the crystals that made up the interior stars gave a further three-dimensional aspect to the montage, making it appear as though the center crystal sat in some special position at the end of a long tunnel that receded far into the background. Looking at the montage as a whole, the eye moved back and forth unconsciously between the two types of stars, first seeing one, then the other, then both together. The six-pointed star in the foreground gave the viewer the feeling that the montage primarily depicted those stellar snow crystals so often associated with the snowflakes, but if one focused on the bold hexagonal outlines that both stars together made, the montage appeared to be that of a hexagonal plate, the most popular of the snow crystals in the public eye after the stellar. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is the type of snow crystal that could be seen in this splendid work of art. But perhaps Bentley had that in mind when he created it.
Curiously, after the Exposition, Bentley never again used the montage. Since he was so enchanted with the beauty of the snow crystals, I would have expected him to use it in some of the many articles he would later publish, but he never did. He did, however, make a lantern slide of it, and a large photograph of the montage was found in the farmhouse after his death. Surprisingly, Bentley had made a similar montage many years before the Exposition, possibly as a teenager. One of his nieces told me it was made “just from sketches he’d made of snowflakes that he’d examined under the microscope. That’s when he was around fifteen, sixteen years old.” She went on to say that her uncle had it framed and hung on the wall, but one day it fell and the glass broke. She said “uncle didn’t take care of things . . . it was long before he died that the [montage] had been thrown out.”
Though Bentley was not outwardly religious, he made several elegant montages of the cross to present to friends and family. The vertical portion was made of six or seven large snow crystals, all different, while the horizontal section was composed of two crystals on each side of the vertical portion. In between and to the side of each of the crystals were two much smaller ones.
Not to be outdone by Bentley, in 1963 a committee of the citizens of Jericho made a snow crystal montage on a ten-inch diameter dinner plate to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jericho. A large (five inch diameter) snow crystal on a blue background decorated the center of the plate. Around this was a white ring that separated the center background from a blue ring about an inch and a half in thickness that ran around the edge of the plate. On this blue ring, evenly spaced, were sixteen smaller snow crystals, and between them were even smaller crystals of varying size. The blue ring had a speckled appearance that made it look as if the snow crystals were falling among hundreds of other snow crystals, many of them far in the distance.
For many years this plate could be bought at the Old Red Mill gift shop in Jericho. Were Bentley still with us, I suspect he would approve of this montage and buy many of these plates to give to his friends. Snowflakes Grace Sax Fifth Avenue by Wayne Howe
Wilson Bentley’s photographs are featured in stunning fashion on a shopping bag made for the high end retailer Sax’s Fifth Avenue. The store offers merchandise to a market similar to the offered at downtown Filenes’s store in New England cities. Sax is know for, among other things, for it’s famous Christmas windows near Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.
Twenty of Bentley’s snowflakes are set off against a matte black finish on each side of the shopping bag. Around the inner rim of the bag are words of the season including: Believe, Grace, Hope, Mercy, Glory and Harmony. Inside the bag is a scarlet red. A Bentley quote is imprinted for the curious shopper. The quote reads, “Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were a miracle of beauty, and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that design was gone, without leaving any record behind.” Wilson Snowflake Bentley, photographer, 1925. The snowflakes have also appeared in print ads for the store in area publications such as the New York Times. Sax Fifth Avenue provided a generous honorarium to the Jericho Historical Society for use of the snowflakes. One can imagine a bustling sophicate marshalling through their shopping in mid town Manhattan with a Bentley bag filled with presents. What grin would have stolen across the face of the good humored farmhand photographer.
The Snowflake’s Closest of Kin by Jon Nelson Wilson Bentley is well known to readers here for his photomicrographs of snow crystals. Snow, however, was only one of the many ‘water wonders’ that held his fascination1. Some of these wonders were made of liquid water, such as dew, and some were frozen water (ice), like the snow crystal. The frozen type he called “The snowflake’s closest of kin”, and they included hoarfrost, rime, windowpane frost, and ice flowers2. To obtain photographs of any of them with the quality obtained by Bentley is difficult even now, which is yet another reason to admire Bentley’s skill and perseverance. On the inside, the
snowflake’s ‘kin’ all have the same crystal structure. But they appear
different on the outside, largely due to the different ways the water in the
surroundings gets to the ice surface. There are many distinct kin because the
surrounding water can be in various states (i.e., ice, liquid, and vapor) and
there are many ways that each state of water can get to the ice surface. I’ll
focus here on snow crystals, hoarfrost, rime, windowpane frost, and ice
flowers. These forms are commonly seen by many of us, and have been observed by
people for a very long time. So it is easy to think, as I probably once did, that
they are well understood by science.
But this view is quite mistaken. Yes, we know they all consist of H2O
molecules and we know something about the structure of ice, but how exactly
they form contain many mysteries. I’ll
describe briefly what Bentley thought of them, and what I think is known and
not known about them.
Snow crystals These were the first ice forms that Bentley studied, and they always fascinated him the most. Snow forms in the atmosphere, either directly on a microscopic dust particle or on a frozen droplet, and grows by the bombardment of water molecules from the water vapor in the air. This growth mode is called growth from the vapor. However, this ideal snow form is often ruined by two other growth modes. When many snow crystals strike each other and stick together, the result is a snowflake (growth by aggregation). When cloud droplets strike a falling snow crystal, the nice crystalline pattern gets covered up, eventually turning the snow into a white blob called graupel (growth by riming). So, if you have tried examining snow crystals yourself, you have probably found, as I have, that most snow looks much different from those in Bentley’s photomicrographs. One often finds snowflakes, partly melted snowflakes, graupel, or tiny pieces of ice that are hard to identify without a microscope. Sometimes though, the conditions are ideal for producing beautiful crystals. If you are lucky enough to experience such a snowfall, then you will understand Bentley’s devotion to snow crystals and why he said “Every crystal was a masterpiece of design; and no one design was ever repeated.”3 Meteorologists classify these ‘designs’ into 80 types. However, most of these are one of two
basic forms; the tabular form, in which growth is fastest on the six “corners”
of the ice structure (Bentley’s book2 contains mostly this form),
and the columnar form, in which growth is fastest on the top and bottom. In addition to these forms, there are also
hybrid types that contain both tabular and columnar parts and irregular types
such as the seagull type. The biggest unsolved mystery of snow is to determine
why the tabular form occurs at some temperatures and the columnar form occurs
at other temperatures.
Hoarfrost Hoarfrost refers to the mass of white, hair-like pieces of ice that grow outward from cold objects in cold air. (The word ‘hoar’ is an old term meaning white- or gray-haired.) One can see hoarfrost on blades of grass and leaves after a cold night (pictures below). Hoarfrost is very closely related to snow because it also grows from the vapor. The only substantial difference between hoarfrost and snow is that hoarfrost has grown on some solid object such as grass and leaves. Also, like snow, hoarfrost comes in two basic forms: columnar, which are needle-shaped, and tabular, which have a flat, hexagonal, plate-like shape. The needles form in relatively warm temperatures (yet still sub-freezing), whereas the plates form at lower temperatures. As with the snow crystal, the reason why one temperature results in columnar forms whereas another temperature results in tabular forms is largely unknown. Hoarfrost crystals are also known toexperience some as-yet-unknown type of electrical charging. In this sense,
Bentley was right when he wrote “…and there is a play of tiny electric charges
about and upon [the snow crystals]…”4 Some scientists now think that
the electrical charging of growing hoarfrost is closely related to electrical
charging of snow crystals, which appears to be important for the charging of
thunderstorms. However, the electrical nature of frost and snow remains a
research topic with many mysteries.
Rime At a distance, rime looks like hoarfrost, but closer inspection often reveals that its ‘hairs’ are thicker and sometimes packed tightly together into a comb-like structure. Rime forms on an object when the object is exposed to a droplet cloud or fog that is below freezing (32 °F or 0 °C). Thus, the ice grows mainly by the bombardment of small droplets of “supercooled” liquid water, which freeze into ice as soon as they contact the rime. The reader may be surprised to hear that the droplets are below 32 °F, but such supercooled droplets are the norm in clouds above –40 °F, not the exception. Bentley thought that supercooling was due to electrical charges in the water. Although water does indeed have electrical charges, as anybody who has touched an electric fence with a wet stick can attest, but we now know that supercooling is due to the strong surface forces on ultra-microscopic pieces of ice in the liquid that suppress their growth. As clouds of droplets are relatively common on mountains, rime is often seen on ice-cold mountains. When the drops are large and the temperature just barely below freezing the rime becomes smooth and clear. This is called glaze. (See pictures of rime and glaze below.) Cloud scientists would like to know how thestructure (density, bumpiness) of rime depends on the temperature of the air,
the wind speed, and the number and size of the droplets. But these things are
poorly known. Moreover, the exact ways that the droplets freeze upon impact are
largely unknown. Another complication is that vapor growth also occurs on rime.
If we could understand the rime structure, we might gain a better understanding
of thunderstorms as well. This is because rime also forms on snow crystals as
they tumble about in a thunderstorm, causing the crystals to become graupel
particles, which, like snow, are crucial for thunderstorm charging. We know
that when a snow crystal rebounds off a graupel particle, some electrical
charge is passed from one to the other. This charging ultimately produces
lightning, but exactly how it works remains a secret of nature. Ice flowers According to Bentley, there are several forms of ice with the name ‘ice flowers’. In his book he describes two such flower-like forms5. One type is now called “Tyndall flowers”, named after the Irish physicist-naturalist John Tyndall who first described them. These flowers, pictured below, form when light from the sun, or a bright lamp in a laboratory, is absorbed in the ice, thus melting a little bit of ice within a larger slab of ice. Now ice has the somewhat uncommon property that it floats on its own melt; that is, ice is less dense than liquid water, or, to put it another way, a given weight of liquid water takes up less space than the same weight of ice. Therefore, when the light melts a little ice within the larger piece of ice, a little bit of space is left over that is filled with water vapor. In this way, a Tyndall flower is born. As more ice melts, the vapor-filled region expands outward like a six-petaled flower. Surprisingly, their growth form indicates that some ice inside has been heated slightly above freezing; that is, it is superheated ice! Curiously, this form has seen very little study. In some ways, the Tyndall flower is like a “negative version” of the other type of ice flower: the “ice flower on water”, to use Bentley’s term.
Bentley carefully studied and classifiedthe types of windowpane frost, perhaps more than any other scientist then or now. And yet, as far as I know, the reasons why windowpane frost has such variety are still not known; indeed, the way that the ice forms and grows on windowpanes is poorly known. However, we do know that glass surfaces generally have a very thin layer of liquid water on them. The curving type of pattern is thought to be due to the freezing of this liquid, which is somewhat, but not exactly, like the freezing of a puddle. You can understand this by noticing that all the frost images below differ from the puddle crystal image above. In some cases, growth of windowpane frostis partly from the vapor, just like the growth of hoarfrost and snow crystals, except the ice remains in a thin layer against the window. This brings up an interesting story6 about Wilson Bentley. What happened was this. Bentley observed a clear region of glass between a frost crystal and the surrounding deposit of tiny dew-drops. (You can easily see this for yourself by using your breath to “fog” the glass around a solitary frost crystal on the outside of a car window after a cold night. Also, see the frost image below, bottom right.) He correctly realized that this was a “most singular, and doubtless most important, phenomenon” and supposed that a similar phenomenon occurred in clouds. But, alas, Bentley did not realize the cause. It is thought that this clear region is due to the rapid evaporation of the dew droplets near the frost, which, in turn, happens because the air around the frost has dried out due to the growth of the frost. As Bentley supposed, the same process occurs in clouds. Indeed it is very important for it results in the rapid growth of snow crystals, which ultimately melt into the large raindrops we receive in the warmer months. Although he did not completely explain the mechanism for the growth of large raindrops, his observational studies of raindrops were important and far ahead of their time. Closing thoughts Bentley focused his attention on snow crystals because of their beauty and variety. The snowflake kin also have beauty and variety, particularly the windowpane frost.7 Much has been learned about snowflakes and their kin since Bentley’s time, and yet we can still look at them and realize that we are in fact peering into a world that remains largely unknown.8 Notes. 1. “Photographing Water Wonders” by Wilson A. Bentley, The American Annual of Photography, vol. 24, pp 84-86, 1910. 2. “Snow Crystals” by W. A. Bentley and W. J. Humphreys, Dover Publications, NY, NY, 1962. 3. “The Snowflake Man, A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley” by Duncan C. Blanchard, The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, Virginia, 1998. Page 22. 4. Ibid, page 153. 5. See introduction to the book in Note 2. 6. See “A Discovery Not Made” on pages 133-141 of the book in Note 3. 7. There are many other ice forms. The relatively common types include the various patterns in the freezing of lakes and puddles, icicles, ice stalagmites, and ground needles (pipkrake), which all grow from the liquid. A less common type, yet quite astonishing in form, is the ‘sap crystal’, which forms from the freezing of plant sap. 8. Thanks to Tsuneya Takahashi, Peter Wolf, Judy Mosby, Michael Sherback, Tadanori Sei, and Charles Knight for the photo images, and to Duncan Blanchard for suggesting changes to an earlier version of this article.
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Editors note
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The key process in all of this is the surface charges on the ice. So let’s look a little deeper
into the matter and see where these charges come from. If we magnify a region
of an ice crystal, such as the top view shown in (a) and (b) below, we see that
the positions of the water molecules are nicely arranged in a regular order.
This ordering has a honeycomb pattern. But if we look even closer, as in (c),
the regularity gets a little messed up. The oxygens (black) in each water
molecule sit nice and orderly in a hexagon, but the hydrogens (red) can be
arranged many different ways. The only restriction is the Bernal-Fowler bond
rule, which says that one hydrogen sits between every pair of adjacent oxygens.
But it turns out that the hydrogens are notorious rule breakers, and it is a
darn good thing too, as we will see later.
charges, whereas the “–“s on the bottom push
(remember that opposites attract and likes repel). Here is the last important
fact: the electrical dance has far more twists than hand-offs – about 10,000
times more. In other words, Bentley’s electric crystals prefer the twist to the
hand-off. From what we can tell, all this twisting attracts the OH-
to the surface. Once at the surface, these negative charges can move to another
surface during a rebounding collision. And that is basically what we now know
about the inner workings of the ice-crystal electric show. Enjoy. 
The people of Jericho and Underhill are grateful for the life of Blair Williams. Blair was force of nature. She led and influenced the society for more than thirty five years. That is extraordinary.
The "Snowflake" Bentley Collection by Vermont Snowflakes
Bentley had
made a large montage of a snow crystal from 125 of his snow crystal
photographs. The individual crystals, both large and small, were placed upon a
jet black background in such a way as to make a montage nearly three feet in
diameter. (The words large and small, as used here do not
refer to the size of the crystals photographed by Bentley. He always adjusted
the magnification of his camera such that the size of the crystals on his
negatives was about the same. But when he made the final prints of the
crystals, the enlarger was adjusted to make some prints larger than the
others.)
Bentley made
other montages. One was on a post card. On one side nearly forty small
crystals, all different, were placed to form a rectangle. Within the rectangle
he placed two large crystals. All the crystals were on a black background. The
other side of the card had a place for the stamp, correspondence and the
address. I suspect Bentley had hundreds of these post cards made, but very few
have survived.
Ice flowers on water are ice crystals that grow in liquid water. I like to call them puddle
crystals because you can sometimes see them in a puddle on a cold day. A puddle crystal looks somewhat like a dendritic
(‘tree-like’) snow crystal, but if you look closer in the images below, you
will notice some differences. For example, the puddle crystal does not have
many interior lines like the snow crystal. Also, the perimeter of the puddle
crystal is curved, not straight like many parts of the snow-crystal perimeter.
This type of curved ‘tree-like’ growth also occurs in other materials, and,
partly for this reason, it has been (and continues to be) studied far more
heavily than snow crystals, frost, rime, and Tyndall flowers combined. As the
snow crystal is more complex than the puddle crystal, and forms in far greater
variety, we can be sure that snow will keep scientists stumped for many years
to come.
Windowpane frost Unlike hoarfrost and rime, windowpane frost
does not stick out from the surface like stiff hairs, but instead grows mostly
across the surface like drawings on a sheet of paper. The number of pictures in Bentley’s book2 that are
devoted to windowpane frost is second only to that of snow crystals. It is easy
to see why; windowpane frost produces a wide variety of patterns, with some
looking like a collection of small flowers, some like jagged spikes, some like
artistic swirls, some like straight ferns, some like curved ferns, and some
like snow crystals. Some of these patterns are shown below.