Crystals From the Sky

141 Years of Appreciating Snowflakes

- BY L.A. BERRY

Celestial folklore is not unfamiliar with tales of treasure from above. Arabian and Greek legends dating to the 7th century believed opal came from the heavens, if not the tears of Zeus himself. Egyptians saw malachite as divine crumbs of stars cast off by a sky goddess, and the meteoric origin of moldavite was linked to the Holy Grail.

All the while, crystals were falling from the sky and hiding in plain sight. Say hello to the humble snowflake, and to American meteorologist Wilson Alwyn 'Snowflake' Bentley, who really knew a natural gem when he saw one and (fortunately for us) shared what his discerning eye discovered with the world, as the first known person ever to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their individual features.

Deep in the heart of winter, January 2026 celebrates the 141st anniversary of the first photograph of a snowflake.

HOW DO SNOWFLAKES FORM?

A snowflake begins as water vapor, freezing on microscopic flecks of volcanic ash or meteor dust, attaching to ever-larger ice crystals until ultimately creating these fleeting, one-of-a-kind minerals.

But wait, why is ice a mineral if water is not? Because ice meets all five standards of mineral criteria: naturally occurring, inorganic, solid, with a definite chemical/crystalline composition (in this case, H2O), and regular atomic structure. Water flunks the solid test and fails to demonstrate ice's hexagonal crystalline lattice.