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Wilson Alwyn Bentley (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931), also known as Snowflake Bentley, was an American
meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
and
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...
, who was the first known person to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their features. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated, and elaborated the theory that no two snowflakes are alike. Kenneth G. Libbrecht notes that the techniques used by Bentley to photograph snowflakes are essentially the same as those used today, and that while the quality of his photographs reflects the technical limitations of the equipment of the era, ''"he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years"''. The broadest collection of Bentley's photographs is held by the Jericho Historical Society in his home town, Jericho, Vermont. Bentley donated his collection of original glass-plate photomicrographs of snow crystals to the Buffalo Museum of Science. A portion of this collection has been digitized and organized into a digital library.


Biography

Bentley was born on February 9, 1865, in Jericho, Vermont. He first became interested in
snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...
crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...
s as a teenager on his family farm. “Always, right from the beginning it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most,” he said. “The farm folks up in this country dread the winter, but I was supremely happy.” He tried to draw what he saw through an old
microscope A microscope () is a laboratory equipment, laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic ...
given to him by his mother when he was fifteen. The snowflakes were too complex to record before they melted, so he attached a bellows camera to a compound microscope and, after much experimentation, photographed his first snowflake on January 15, 1885. He captured more than 5,000 images of crystals. Each crystal was caught on a blackboard and transferred rapidly to a microscope slide. Even at subzero temperatures, snowflakes are ephemeral because they sublimate. Bentley described snowflakes as "tiny miracles of beauty" and snow crystals as "ice flowers." Despite these poetic descriptions, Bentley brought an empirical method to his work. In collaboration with George Henry Perkins, professor of natural history at the
University of Vermont The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont (UVM), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Foun ...
, Bentley published an article in which he argued that no two snow crystals were alike. This concept caught the public imagination and he published other articles in magazines, including '' National Geographic'', ''
Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'', ''
Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...
'', and ''
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...
''. His photographs have been requested by academic institutions worldwide. In 1931 Bentley worked with William J. Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Bureau to publish ''Snow Crystals'', a
monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...
illustrated with 2,500 photographs. His other publications include the entry on "snow" in the fourteenth edition of ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
''. Bentley also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog. He was the first American to record raindrop sizes, and was one of the first cloud
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
s. He died of pneumonia, which he may have contracted while walking home in the snow, at his farm on December 23, 1931. His book ''Snow Crystals'' was published by McGraw-Hill shortly before his death, and is still in print today.


Legacy

Bentley was memorialized in the naming of a science center in his memory at Johnson State College (now Vermont State University) in
Johnson, Vermont Johnson is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,491 at the 2020 census. The town is home to Northern Vermont University-Johnson, a part the Vermont State Colleges system. The Vermont Studio Center is loc ...
. His lifelong home is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
. The Caldecott Medal winner in 1999 for the best-illustrated children's book was ''Snowflake Bentley'', which remembers Bentley's life. At the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, a meteorological observation center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, there is an exhibit about atmospheric ice crystal formation featuring several of Bentley’s photos and a short biography. Bentley was a friend of naturalist, industrialist, and collector Franklin Fairbanks. Photomicrographs using Bentley's technique of a 19th-century collection of 19 glass-plate negatives of snowflakes held by the Geology Department of the Field Museum in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
have been assembled into a field guide by the museum.


See also

*
Patterns in nature Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural world. These patterns recur in different contexts and can sometimes be modelled mathematically. Natural patterns include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, wave ...
* Ukichiro Nakaya * Karl Blossfeldt


References


Bibliography

*Thompson, Jean M., Illustrated by Bentley, Wilson A. ''Water Wonders Every Child Should Know'' (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1913) *Bentley, Wilson A. ''The Guide to Nature'' (1922) *Bentley, Wilson A. 'The Magic Beauty of Snow and Dew', ''National Geographic'' (January 1923) *Bentley, Wilson A.; Humphreys, William J. ''Snow Crystals'' (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931) *Bentley, Wilson A. "Snow", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'': Vol. 20 (14th ed., 1936; pp. 854–856) *Knight, N. (1988) "No two alike?" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 69(5):496


Other reading

*Blanchard, Duncan. ''The Snowflake Man, A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley'', (Blacksburg, VA: McDonald and Woodward, 1998) . *Martin, Jacqueline Briggs. ''Snowflake Bentley'', (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998) (a children's biography illustrated with woodcuts hand tinted with watercolors by Mary Azarian. Awarded the Caldecott Medal.) *Stoddard, Gloria May. ''Snowflake Bentley: Man of Science, Man of God'' (Shelburne, VT: New England Press, 1985) (Originally published in 1979 by Concordia Publishing House, ).


External links


Snowflake Bentley.com
*New York Heritage
Bentley Snow Crystal Collection
*
Worldcat entry for Wilson A. Bentley Photographs at the Vermont Historical SocietyBliss, Segment on Bentley Snow Crystal Starts at 34:00
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Wilson 1865 births 1931 deaths People from Jericho, Vermont American meteorologists American nature photographers Pioneers of photography Deaths from pneumonia in Vermont