We Sure Could Use A Few "Snowflakes" Snow crystal by W.A. Bentley There is a very gentle snowfall occurring at this moment like that which one of our best friends once described as tiny chicken feathers gently floating down to the ground. It’s almost as though the snow is falling in slow motion, such that you can focus on one snowflake and follow its course downward. The delicate, exquisitely tiny snow crystals are often lumped together forming larger snowflakes, and it is these that capture one’s attention, laying the groundwork for my thoughts this morning. There are many people whose outstanding work with nature, coupled with their inspiration and strong leadership, who I’d like to include in my last story of the year, but the one who "nudges" me the most is Wilson Alwyn Bentley, better known as Snowflake Bentley. Bentley was born on a farm near Jericho, Vermont in 1865 and never married. He received most of his schooling from his mother at home, and obtained a bellows camera and microscope from his parents when he was 17. Following a few years of failure in photographing individual snow crystals through his microscope he finally succeeded at age 19. It was in his brown notebook that he wrote, " Snow crystals, January 15, 1885. Temp. 21-27F., loud, dark, cloudy. No. 1 to 5. First snow crystals ever photomicrographed." By the time W.A. Bentley reached his 66th birthday in 1931, the year he died, he had photomicrographed 5,381 snow crystals, all different. One of his most ardent admirers and disciples in our state of Wisconsin was Professor Benjamin W. Snow, physics professor at the University in Madison. Prof. Snow made his first purchase of a glass lantern slide of a snow crystal from Bentley in 1889. Twenty-eight years later, in 1917, Snow bought another 178 slides bringing the total to around 2000. President Van Hise of the UW also followed Bentley’s work with great interest. It was around 22 years ago that I first came to know about Bentley and his work through a science magazine story. My nature essay for the first week of January 1978 centered around Snowflake Bentley. Much to my pleasant surprise, it brought about a complimentary response from Miss Blair Williams, professor of home economics at the University of Vermont in Burlington, not too far from Bentley’s hometown of Jericho. She had been one of the driving forces behind the Jericho Historical Society and was especially interested in calling the world’s attention to Snowflake Bentley’s great contributions to science and humanity. I received another exciting letter on March 12, 1980 from Dr. Duncan C. Blanchard, Senior Research Associate for the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, State University of New York at Albany. It so happens that he was a friend of Dr. Robert and Betty Ragotzkie of Madison. Robert was a professor of meteorology (weather) at the University. The Ragotzkies alerted Dr. Blanchard to my interest in Snowflake Bentley and I’m now assuming that it might have been Dr. Blanchard who first showed my story to Miss Williams. Duncan Blanchard had published in 1998 a book he wrote, "The Snowflake Man," the biography of Snowflake Bentley, an absolute must for all snowflake afficionados. It was put out by the McDonald & Woodward Publishing Co. of Blacksburg, Virginia. Both Dr. Duncan Blanchard and Dr. Blair Williams strongly urged me to look into the whereabouts of the 2000+ lantern slides purchased by the UW from Bentley, and especially some of the correspondence between Prof. Snow and Bentley. Unfortunately very little of Bentley’s correspondence has turned up in various searches, items that the Jericho Historical Society of Vermont values very highly. It was my good friend, John Shaw, manager of the University Book Store in Madison for many years, who knew his way around the UW-Madison quite well and who finally uncovered a small number of the Bentley lantern slides in the physics department eighteen years ago. Apparently sensing my intense interest in promoting the work that Bentley did during his life, the physics lab made several 4-inch by 5-inch negative copies of Bentley’s lantern slides for me. It is from these negatives that I have been able to print photographs, ranging from small to very large, some of which are now being currently used in a display of Bentley’s work at the UW-Madison, set up by our researcher friend, Rob Nurre. Bentley made all of his snow crystal pictures using 3-inch by 4-inch glass-slide negatives. The complete process of obtaining a photograph of a white snow crystal against a black background was very complicated and labor intensive for Bentley. As a result he spent far more money on producing his famous photographs and lantern slides than he ever received in compensation. Dr. Blanchard, in writing about Bentley, said, "The price that Bentley had to pay in loneliness is the price that all must pay whose inner vision allows them to see what others can never see." Another quote from the Christian Herald magazine admirably sums up Bentley’s great qualities, "…a remarkable Christian farmer and scientist who for half a century served God and man by preserving the beauty of snowflakes." It is still snowing lightly and I can nearly feel the presence of Snowflake Bentley sitting next to me, grinning from ear to ear!" I am thoroughly convinced that what this troubled world of ours needs badly today are a lot more Snowflake Bentleys! More information on this topic is available at: Official Snowflake Bentley Site This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 12/31/1999. © Copyright 1999 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.