"] But the snow will
not change its direction while drifting in a wind that
blows straight ahead. Its direction is from first to last
the resultant of the direction of the wind and that of
the pull of gravity, into which there enters besides only
the ratio of the strengths of these two forces. The single
snowflake is to the indifferent eye something infinitesimal,
too small to take individual notice of, once it reaches
the ground. For most of us it hardly has any separate
existence, however it may be to more astute observers.
We see the flakes in the mass, and we judge by results.
Now firstly, to talk of results, the filling up of a
hollow, unless the drifting snow is simply picked up from
the ground where it lay ready from previous falls, proceeds
itself rather slowly and in quite a leisurely way. But
secondly, and this is the more important reason, the wind
blows in waves of greater and lesser density; these
waves--and I do not know whether this observation has
ever been recorded though doubtless it has been made by
better observers than I am--these waves, I say, are
propagated in a direction opposite to that of the wind.
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