Our universe can feel overwhelmingly chaotic. But it also reveals itself to be patterned, generous, and infinitely inventive, if we pause to look.

Take snowflakes, which fall unnoticed by the billions every winter. Their hexagonal shape is determined by the hydrogen bonds in water. They are symmetrical because, in frozen water’s crystalline structure, molecules naturally arrange themselves like tiles following a pattern. Most astonishing is the fact that the whole complex, beautiful structure arises spontaneously, literally out of thin air, as the snowflake tumbles through the winter clouds.

But it requires uncommon dedication and attentiveness to see how a flake of ice contains a complete, unique expression of universal law, briefly incarnated, before it’s gone.

Wilson A. Bentley was born on a farm in 1865 in Jericho, Vermont, where he lived all his life. Jericho was in Vermont’s "snowbelt," with annual snowfall sometimes exceeding 120 inches. Although raised to be a farmer, Bentley developed an interest in snow crystals after he received a microscope for his fifteenth birthday. In 1885, Bentley made the first successful photograph of a snowflake. He was 19 years old.

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His devotion bordered on the monastic, working for decades through blizzards, sometimes all night, in temperatures below zero in unheated spaces. He would carefully capture a snowflake on a tray of chilled black velvet, quickly position the flake using a feather, and take a photograph before the flake melted or sublimated. Over nearly 50 years of winters, he produced thousands of spectacular images that still fascinate.

Links:

• "The Snowflake Man of Vermont," by By Keith C. Heidorn, The Public Domain Review, February 14, 2011

• https://www.jerichohistoricalsociety.org/snowflake-bentley.html

• Things you always wanted to know about Snow Crystals from Caltech

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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