Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/142

 134 SNOW FIG. 1. holt still exhibit stone structures of finished elegance for hot baths, supplied from boiling springs through an aqueduct of hewn stone 500 ft. in length. On being elected to the chief magistracy, he gave proof of great judi- cial learning. In 1213 he produced an ode to a Norwegian warrior, which was requited by liberal pres- ents. This poem was fol- lowed by others, one of them composed in honor of the king of Norway, Haco V. On a visit to Norway he was made an honorary marshal of the court, and upon re- embarking for Iceland was loaded with rich presents. Faction and disor- der prevailed throughout Iceland, and the king of Norway seized the moment to advance his designs for the subjugation of the island. Snorri became involved in domestic feuds, and in 1237 appeared in Norway as a fugitive. The king created him a jarl, but soon became hos- tile to him, and Snorri returned to Iceland. Emissaries were employed to seize him and send him in irons to Norway, but he was murdered at Reykholt by his son-in-law, Gissur. His most important work is the Heimtkringla, or " Chroni- cle of the Norwegian Kings." It is probable that in this work he made large use of the writings of Ari Frode, fragments of whose Scandi- navian histories, composed a century earlier, still remain. The Younger Edda also bears the name of Snorri Sturla- son alone, but it was gradu- ally formed by the successive additions of several writers. The first copy of it was found by Arngrim Jonsson in 1628. The original Icelandic text of the Heimslcring- la was first printed by Peringskiold in 1697, though a Danish translation was current 100 years before. The last edition is by Schoning and others, in Icelandic, Danish, and Latin (6 vols., Copenhagen, 1777-1826). There is an English translation, "The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway," by Samuel Laing (8 vols., London, 1844). SNOW, the flocculent white masses of crystals in which the aqueous vapor of the at- mosphere at low tempera- tares is precipitated from the FIO. 8 clouds. The other forms in which atmospheric vapor appears are treated .f under DEW, FROST, HAIL, and RAIS. The primary condition necessary to the formation rf snow is the saturation of the air at a freez- ing temperature with vapor ; the exact limits t temperature are not known, but probably vary with the density of the air and the va- por; the surplus vapor is precipitated from its invisible state in minute crystals, the pri- mary form of which is that of a rhomboid having angles of 60 and 120. (See CRYS- TALLOGRAPHY.) By far the larger part of FIG. 2. FIG. 8. FIG. 4 FIG. 5. snow falls during the night, and in many lo- calities the maximum fall is between 1 and 7 A. M., which suggests that the cooling neces- sary to the production of snow is mainly due to radiation ; a secondary maximum between 8 and 10 A. M. is explicable as due to the influence of the dynamic cooling of rising cur- rents. The complexity of the forms of snow FIG. 6. FIG. 7. flakes increases with the quantity of moisture in the air, and probably with the variety of alternations of temperature to which they are exposed. Their size increases with the tem- perature and humidity ; thus they are much larger from 9 to 11 A. M. than before sun- rise. Little however is satisfactorily known on these points. More than 1,000 forms of snow crystals have been observed and figured FIG. FIG. 10. FIG. 11. by Scoresby, Glaisher, Green, Stephen Lowe, and others. A very beautiful contribution to this subject was published anonymously in New York in 1863, under the title of Cloud Crystals," in which over 150 new forms are added to those described by previ-