WORKING IN SNOW AND ICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 59

WORKING IN SNOW AND ICE.

THE DESIGNERS HAVE A COLD TASK. Manipulated by deft fingers, nearly every possible kind of material is used for the moulding of all sorts of models. Statues and other similar "works of art " have been constructed of soap, wax, glass, cork, wool, sponge, pumice, coal, and even cheese and butter, as Avell as formed out of the foliage of bushes and trees, and carved out of large, solid fungi. In cold countries, and, during spells of wintry weather sometimes in warmer climes, remarkable things are also done in snow and ice, a feAV of which are here glanced at. The most familiar instance is the schoolboys' simple fort. Consisting merely of a heap of snoAV, trodden hard inside to give

a firm footing to the defenders, v it affords abundant oportunity for much enjoj'able open-air activity, and the display of conspicuous gallantry undei — snowball — fire. Above the fort floats, on the clothes-prop flagstaff, the luckless pocket-handkerchief of one of the pupil-warriors. Naturally enough, the more ambitious examples of snow and ice modelling are possible only in lands where at inter is more rigorous and less capricious than with us. The erection of a snow palace is, in Russia, a favourite project with those who make this work a hobby. Some of these are models of royal residences. Others are built to scale and from plans prepared beforehand. Constructed •in the private grounds of nobles and others, some of these

chilly mansions have even been provided with ice windows and illuminated inside by electric light. Photographs are taken of these chateaux in miniature, the elfect as they stand outlined against the sky upon their little hill being as that of a magician's gleaming white palace from the pages of the "Arabian Nights." By no means always, however, does the snow artist rigidly restrict himself to such severe specimens of his art. Sometimes he playfully indulges his fanny. The "elkhunter," modelled near Geneva, for example, and here sketched, did not, as will be seen

at a glance, rely wholly upon mere correctness of outline for. its claim to attention. The elk was most realistically represented in the act of browsing. Fidelity to Nature, however, was not the only reason for this, for the luxurious foliage of the — apparently — standard rose tree conveniently served also to hide wooden supports necessary for the upholding of the creature's head and neck. Branches of trees formed his spreading antlers. In the year of the Queen's Jubilee, Canadian loyalty prompted the modelling in ice and snow of numerous, more or less lifelike, statues of her Majesty. Some of these were really clever works of art, and well worthy of preservation. In Canada, too, the home of the exhilarating toboggan, a snow arch is sometimes built over some

point on the long, glassy slide, and this the voyagers have to shoot with accuracy. Considerable nicety in steering is required to exactly fiuide tne swiftly flying little sleigh

through the often narrow span. While some' such erections are mere inles of snow hollowed out into an arch, others are quite ornate samples of plastic art. We do not, however, remember to have seen it recorded what happens to the structure — or to the rider — when a doAvn-coming toboggan fails to aim straight at the opening. Like most other products of human ingenuity, snoAV models have before now provided the means for pecuniary gain. Here is reproduced a little Arctic group that was, even in the North of London, successfully utilised as a "side shoAV," commanding a considerable "gate"' at the rate of a penny a head. This masterpiece in crystalline flakes was the Avork of some men employed in a circus, to Avhom occurred the brilliant notion that a tableau in snoAV might prove an attractive draw. As will be evident,

the -subject chosen was the /'discovery of the North Pole," a moral as to the danger of such hazardous enterprises being furnished by the addition or an attendant Nemesis in the shape of a polar bear treading in the footsteps of the rash explorer. As in the case of the "elk-hunter," the innovation took so well-that the group was, for its own safety's sake, railed in. Trusting more to the representation of a familiar favourite th<m to anything in the way of a group telling a little story, some resoiirceful Scottish modellers in snow built up a railway engine and tender, supposed to be just emerging from a dark tunnel, represented by a hollow in a high mound of the same material. Wooden rails were hud

down, with laths across to imitate sleepers, and wheels of carts and other vehicles, pressed into the sides of the snow, did duty tor those of the locomotive. At nighttime a, real red lamp gleamed in front, and the "cab of the engine was tenanted by a "drivf-.r" and "stoker," and glowed with the fierce glare of an oil stove. Poles carrying lengths of string represented the telegraph wires alongside the track, and real coal, stacked in the tender, afforded a striking contrast to its whiteness, and a finishing touch to the actuality of the whole scheme. During the skating season a roaring trade is often done by individuals who, providing a chair and footboard, station themselves beside frozen-over pond 3, lakes, and streams, inviting prospective patrons to have their skates fixed on. Competition at a place of this kind in the North of England being keen,

! one "fhrin"conceived the notion of building a j snow man-'o-war to attract attention to ; their pitch. This warship was duly coni structed on the ice to look as if actually in water, and was facetiously christened "B.M.S. Freezer." At night her graceful outlines were revealed in coloured "fairy lamps," those in the vessel herself being placed upon strips of wood to prevent, as the owners explained, " the heat from penetraLing her armour plating." Some snow figures call for notice simply on account of their size, rough and ready representations of giants 15ft or 20ft high being .sometimes constructed. For the erection of such monsters a primitive kind of scaffolding has, of course, to be specially employed. Soldiers when in winter quarters, as well as schoolboys, frequently thus ! wile away their time. When a snow figure

is of large size, and stands in an attitude difficult to arrive at merely in snow, a skeleton frame is sometimes made to serve as a support for the whole. The legs of this skeleton, being carried down and embedded in the ground, give stability to the entire figure, and only in this way is it possible, in snow and not ice, to represent the arms outstretched, and so forth.

When the snow artist has at last finished his cold task, and the statue rises white and complete before him, he is from that moment haunted by a fear lest warmer weather shall set in and his creation dribble away before his eyes. This, and almost immediately, was the fate of a French sculptor's fine effort. His masterpiece, heroic in size, was finished by lamplight one evening, ready for public inspection on a holiday next day. Alas! for the artist's no£es A about 3 a.m. the .weather turned

milder, and at 6 o'clock a steady downpour commenced. The miserable snow man at once began to disappear. In view of the state of the weather, and of the form token by one rapidly-melting arm, a jocular mdi

vidual among the spectators who assembled declared his conviction that the statue had been originally intended for that of "Thor and his Hammer." — Cassell's Saturday Journal.