Wilson Bentley
By Illa Vij

WILSON BENTLEY spent 50 years studying snowflakes and held a very special place in the field of meteorology. Meteorologists all over the world, know about his 6000 microphotographs of snow-flakes and value them as an important source of information.

Wilson Bentley was born in February, 1865, in rural Vermont near Jericho. His immense love for nature drew him very close to it and by the time he was eight years old, he had collected every type of fern known in Vermont. He studied nature with great concentration and his mind was always at work to explore more. Seeing his special inclination towards nature, his parents gifted him a microscope on his fifteenth birthday. The same day, as he watched the snow fall, he was inspired to study flakes under the microscope. He placed a snowflake on a slide and focused on it. What he saw delighted him and he shouted for his brother to come and share the magnificent sight. But by the time his brother Charles reached, the snowflake had melted. Wilson Bentley then thought of pre-cooling the slide, which would help keep the snowflake in shape for a longer time. He began showing his family these wonderful sights and later shared them with the world.

Around the age of 20 years, Bentley built a shed on a hillside. He set up a camera and a microscope in front of a window. He photographed the snowflakes against the light to get the minutest details of their structure.

In a sharp snowstorm, he managed to study and photograph 50 to 75 flakes. To capture the snowflakes that fell, he held out a tray covered with black velvet. From the flakes that fell, he carefully selected one and cautiously transferred it on to a slide. By his keen observation he found some fascinating facts about snowflakes, their anatomy and physiology.

He found that snowflakes grew from a tiny nucleus. He even found that if three nuclei adhered to one another, they produced a hexagonal-shaped structure. In the presence of one another, the larger crystals grew at the expense of the smaller ones. He found, what he called, ridges, grooves and cavities. He mapped cavities which were usually empty and at times partially filled with water. The scientific world recognised him in 1898.

Bentley and Professor G.H. Perkins of University of Vermont wrote an article about the photographs in a scientific journal. Bentley began writing to the Monthly Weather Review. He also wrote his first book, entitled Water Wonders. Its illustrations and text became a rich source of information for all meteorologists.The prints were brought and studied all over the world.

Bentley was made the member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His book Snow Crystals was published in 1931. He wrote this along with William Humphrey, professor of meteorology at the US Weather Bureau. The book contains 2000 reproductions of Bentley’s pictures of snowflakes, frost and ice flowers which are formed inside a sheet of ice.

Bentley worked in temperatures well below zero degree. One day in December, 1931, after returning from his cold room, he went to bed with fever. Two days before Christmas after seeing the Christmas tree in his brother’s part of the house (both the brothers shared one house), he died. That day, it snowed all day long.

Bentley left behind beautiful sights of snowflakes, for the world to enjoy. A Japanese physics professor, Ukichiro Nakaya, continued the study of snow which Bentley had left. He made every type of crystal artificially, clearly determining conditions affecting their formations.