I loved the story and thought it was fascinating. I first heard about Wilson Bentley when my children were watching a Scholastic video featuring the book 'Snowflake Bentley' by Jacqueline Martin. I like when books (and movies) lead me to other books. I have a book of his beautiful snowflake photographs ( Snowflakes in Photographs) and this biography provides satisfactory context for them. His work, however, is covered in very satisfactory detail here. Although he apparently was also obsessed with the beauty of young women's smiles, which is mildly unsettling. But although the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauty of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again.īlanchard the biographer attempts to find out something about Bentley the man, but he remains something of an enigma. come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away. As well as postulating how snowflakes form, he wrote things like: He combined pragmatic scientific observation with mysticism in an unusual and rather charming fashion. Meanwhile, his neighbours on various farms seem to have found him weird, but not rich enough to merit eccentricity. ![]() According to his biographer, Bentley didn't take an interest in religion, but nonetheless had great respect for and fascination with the abstraction of Nature. As he put it, his dream was of finding, 'the one, or the few, preeminently beautiful snow crystals that we may be certain exists among the snows'. Yet he still made a substantial contribution to the scientific understanding of snow, whilst retaining a sort of quest for the holy grail of the most beautiful snowflake. He was from a poor farming background and had no formal scientific training: consequently his theories about the formation of snowflakes were sometimes misconceived. I have every sympathy for his lifelong obsession with snowflakes and their beauty, as well as his wider interest in meteorology and geology.īentley is an interesting figure to me not just for his specific focus on snowflakes but because of his status. Wilson Bentley was a pioneer of snowflake photography, being entirely self-taught in rural America. It is a serviceable but in no way exceptional biography of a minor figure who fascinates me. As the library is a lovely place to read, though, I eventually went back to 'Snowflake Bentley'. The reason I've had this book listed as part-read for two and a half years is that the Scott Polar Research Institute library does not allow borrowing.
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