The form of the wind.

January 1

January 1, 2017

This morning it is snowing again fast, and about six inches has already fallen by 10 a. m., of a moist and heavy snow. It is about six inches in all this day.

I notice that in the angle made by our house and shed, a southwest exposure, the snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl, showing that there was an eddy about it. It shows where the wind has been, the form of the wind.

The snow is like a mould, showing the form of the eddying currents of air which have been impressed on it, while the drifts mark the standstill or equilibrium between the currents of air or particular winds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1854

The snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl. Compare February 9, 1855 ("A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level. It stands on the top of our pump about ten inches deep, almost a perfect hemisphere, or half of an ellipse.”); December 30, 1855 ("A dry, light, powdery snow . . . The pump has a regular conical Persian( cap, and every post about the house a. similar one. It is quite light, but has not drifted. ")

January 1. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 1

Snow is like a mold

showing the form of the wind –

where the wind has been.

January 1, 1854

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt540101