the snow and the treasures of the hail, which He hath rer served against the time of battle, against the dayof battle and war. ; \ [>i Ji : ! - These great winding-sheets of snow were taken by the wind, which was blowing at the lowest estimate 70 miles an hour, sometimes attaining a velocity of 100: miles. Sometimes an undulating tremor would run through the falling avalanche, and the sheets of snow would flap. and vibrate in the wind like sails or curtains. At other times the gale would, in a fiercer fury, rend .the great; slanting drifts into r fragments, and whirling .these •along,.the i ground or through the lower air, resolve i them into particles which, were fused as in a crucible when another current of air or , : solid obstruction was encountered, taking the form of a tube fora second, then, with a shriek— the wind magician's'signal to the genii of the air — vanishing in an iascendihg spiral, as ! if the funnelbf 'an 1 ocean steamer; should blow: itself off in. a ! volume of smoke througli.its bwntbpl :^ i At midday it was dark as Egypt. > The' ;few people who were caught put of ; doors igroped and guessed their difficult ..', ;Way. jThe : man who. held. out .his^ hand' could got s^e_ it at the length of hislown arm. Buildings-were invisible tilJlone rah against them, and looking up saw a greyer shadow in the grey storm. The! sun w.as powerless to- 'disperse or lighten this' Cimmeriah gloom, but at' times 'hie threw a sickly jlight upon the' storm,' which' had a weird Broad bands of paler color radi ated from the trembling misturess which, iwas the sun, traversing the dark storm surface like the indistinct vista some painters trace in an evening scene. When ■the storm lulled for a -moment the shadows of the snow flakes could actually be seen ton the white ground, seeming like a mul titude of fragments. of charred paper or a whole forest's complement of withered leaves skimming upwards from the depths of the drifts to meetand mate with the flakes that were; skurrying downwards. --|. Those thirty-six hours of storm, of suh- ; less day, starless night, nothing but 1 driving snow and howling wind, were long, as ages. 