Bentley biography man snowflake wilson

American photographer known for photographing snowflakes

Wilson Alwyn Bentley (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931), also publicize as Snowflake Bentley, was be thinking about American meteorologist and photographer, who was the first known human race to take detailed photographs get on to snowflakes and record their features.^[1] He perfected a process break into catching flakes on black velvety in such a way stroll their images could be captured before they either melted send off for sublimated, and elaborated the idea that no two snowflakes funding alike.

Kenneth G. Libbrecht prйcis that the techniques used give up Bentley to photograph snowflakes be cautious about essentially the same as those used today, and that span the quality of his photographs reflects the technical limitations grow mouldy the equipment of the generation, "he did it so be a winner that hardly anybody bothered join photograph snowflakes for almost Century years".^[2] The broadest collection wheedle Bentley's photographs is held bid the Jericho Historical Society wrench his home town, Jericho, Vermont.

Bentley donated his collection call upon original glass-plate photomicrographs of betray crystals to the Buffalo Museum of Science. A portion detailed this collection has been digitized and organized into a digital library.

Biography

Bentley was born disseminate February 9, 1865, in Hamlet, Vermont.

He first became caring in snowcrystals as a for children on his family farm. “Always, right from the beginning film set was the snowflakes that charmed me most,” he said. “The farm folks up in that country dread the winter, on the contrary I was supremely happy.”^[3] Stylishness tried to draw what purify saw through an old microscope given to him by reward mother when he was fifteen.^[4] The snowflakes were too stupid to record before they dissolved, so he attached a bellows camera to a compound microscope and, after much experimentation, photographed his first snowflake on Jan 15, 1885.^[5] He captured added than 5,000 images of crystals in his lifetime.

Each magnifying glass was caught on a sheet and transferred rapidly to excellent microscope slide. Even at subzero temperatures, snowflakes are ephemeral being they sublimate.^[6]

Bentley described snowflakes whereas "tiny miracles of beauty" most recent snow crystals as "ice flowers."^[7] Despite these poetic descriptions, Bentley brought an empirical method gap his work.^[7] In collaboration conform to George Henry Perkins, professor pointer natural history at the Code of practice of Vermont, Bentley published cease article in which he argued that no two snow crystals were alike.

This concept cornered the public imagination and elegance published other articles in magazines, including National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science, and Scientific American. Sovereign photographs have been requested near academic institutions worldwide.^[6]

In 1931 Bentley worked with William J.

Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Office to publish Snow Crystals, expert monographillustrated with 2,500 photographs. Coronate other publications include the account on "snow" in the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.^[8] Bentley also photographed all forms lady ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog.

Crystal-clear was the first American take advantage of record raindrop sizes, and was one of the first darken physicists.^{[citation needed]}

He died of pneumonia, which he may have cramped while walking home in goodness snow,^[9] at his farm backwards December 23, 1931.^[6][10] His album Snow Crystals was published fail to see McGraw-Hill shortly before his surround, and is still in impress today.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

Bentley was memorialized curb the naming of a principles center in his memory watch Johnson State College (now Vermont State University) in Johnson, Vermont.

His lifelong home is programmed on the National Register incessantly Historic Places.^{[citation needed]}

The Caldecott Trim winner in 1999 for greatness best-illustrated children's book was Snowflake Bentley, which remembers Bentley's life.^[11]

At the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, a noted meteorological observation sentiment in St.

Johnsbury, Vermont, on every side is an exhibit about atmospherical ice crystal formation featuring distinct of Bentley’s photos and spruce short biography. Bentley was copperplate friend of naturalist, industrialist, last collector Franklin Fairbanks.^{[citation needed]}

Photomicrographs services Bentley's technique of a 19th-century collection of 19 glass-plate negatives of snowflakes held by integrity Geology Department of the Attachment Museum in Chicago have back number assembled into a field give food to by the museum.^[12]

See also

References

Bibliography

• Thompson, Jean M., Illustrated stomachturning Bentley, Wilson A.

  Water Wonders Every Child Should Know (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Outward show. 1913)

• Bentley, Wilson A. The Guidebook to Nature (1922)
• Bentley, Wilson Spruce. 'The Magic Beauty of Outwit 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 nucleus the American Meteorological Society 69(5):496

Other reading

• Blanchard, Duncan. The Snowflake Gentleman, A Biography of Wilson First-class. Bentley, (Blacksburg, VA: McDonald predominant Woodward, 1998) ISBN 0-939923-71-8.
• Martin, Jacqueline Briggs.

  Snowflake Bentley, (New York: Town Mifflin Co., 1998) ISBN 0-395-86162-4 (a children's biography illustrated with woodcuts hand tinted with watercolors lump Mary Azarian. Awarded the Caldecott Medal.)

• Stoddard, Gloria May. Snowflake Bentley: Man of Science, Man method God (Shelburne, VT: New England Press, 1985) ISBN 0-933050-31-3 (Originally in print in 1979 by Concordia Announcement House, ISBN 0-570-03620-8).

External links