The upsloping layer
from the north would hang out again, with an even brow;
but between this smooth cornice and the upper edge of
the talus the snow looked as if it had been squeezed out
by tremendous pressure from above, like an exceedingly
viscid liquid--cooling glue, for instance, which is being
squeezed out from between the core and the veneer in a
veneering press.
Once I passed close to and south of, two thickets which
were completely buried by the snow. Between them a ditch
had been scooped out in a very curious fashion. It
resembled exactly a winding river bed with its water
drained off; it was two or three feet deep, and wherever
it turned, its banks were undermined on the "throw" side
by the "wash" of the furious blow. The analogy between
the work of the wind and the work of flowing water
constantly obtrudes, especially where this work is one
of "erosion."
But as flowing water will swing up and down in the most
surprising forms where the bed of the river is rough with
rocks and throws it into choppy waves which do not seem
to move, so the snow was thrown up into the most curious
forms where the frozen swamp ground underneath had bubbled,
as it were, into phantastic shapes.
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