The snow on
the ground also settles and thaws every bright day, and freezes at
night, until it becomes coarsely granulated, and loses every trace of
its rayed crystalline structure, and then a man may walk firmly over its
frozen surface as if on ice. The forest region up to an elevation of
7000 feet is usually in great part free from snow in June, but at this
time the higher regions are still heavy-laden, and are not touched by
spring weather to any considerable extent before the middle or end of
July.
One of the most striking effects of the snow on the mountains is the
burial of the rivers and small lakes.
As the snow fa's in the river
A moment white, then lost forever,
sang Burns, in illustrating the fleeting character of human pleasure.
The first snowflakes that fall into the Sierra rivers vanish thus
suddenly; but in great storms, when the temperature is low, the
abundance of the snow at length chills the water nearly to the
freezing-point, and then, of course, it ceases to melt and consume the
snow so suddenly. The falling flakes and crystals form, cloud-like
masses of blue sludge, which are swept forward with the current and
carried down to warmer climates many miles distant, while some are
lodged against logs and rocks and projecting points of the banks, and
last for days, piled high above the level of the water, and show white
again, instead of being at once "lost forever," while the rivers
themselves are at length lost for months during the snowy period.
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