NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 257 



vulsion. The view is from a point where the atmosphere is clear, around 

 and above. Immediately above the storm the air is not so cold as in a place 

 where there is no cloud nor storm beneath. The falling of the rain can be 

 heard above the cloud, making a noise like a waterfall over a precipice. The 

 thunder heard above the cloud is not loud, and the flashes of lightning ap- 

 pear like s:rcaks of intensely-white fire on a surface of white vapor. 



A Side Vicicofa Storm observed when it is a mile or two off and some- 

 what lower than the point of observation presents in form the shape of an 

 hour-glass ; the picture of a waterspout also gives a good outline of its 

 shape. In this well-defined form it moves along over the earth. When the 

 storm is so small that you can embrace its whole bulk at a single glance 

 which you can do when you are several miles off and a little more elevated 

 than the meteor it looks as though it were trailing its lower base along on 

 the surface of the earth, and it has an individuality which cannot be recog- 

 nized when viewed from the ground. Although the storm is being moved 

 along by the same current of wind that is drifting along the observer, it will 

 be deflected from that course by its encountering a mountain ridge or a deep 

 valley, just in proportion to the amount of lateral force or obstruction it sus- 

 tains in such cases ; and then the observer in a balloon may continue onward, 

 while the storm may be moving off at right angles with his route. These 

 lateral views of storms are very grand and imposing as they rush along by 

 an elevated observer. 



A Closer View from the Side of a Stor,,i, and partly in it, reveals a very in- 

 teresting physical aspect. The one now described occurred on the 3d of 

 June, 1852, during a balloon excursion from Portsmouth, Ohio. The storm 

 was kedging up the Ohio River, about fifty miles above Portsmouth, and 

 where the river courses nearly north and south, while I was sailing from 

 west to east. Moving at nearly right angles with the storm, soon brought 

 us together, and the country below being dense forest, the meteor's company 

 was preferred to a reception in the woods. It was easy to keep out of the 

 vortex of the storm from an abundant supply of ballast aboard of the air- 

 ship ; hence a point in its wake was the station of observing its action, and 

 having learned that the shape of storms was like two cones with their ends 

 joined, with a wind driving in below and rushing out again at its top, you 

 might sail with impunity in its wake, provided you kept midway between 

 the upper and lower cloud. "When getting too low in its wake there was a 

 tendency to rock the balloon into the vortex, but this was countervailed by 

 going up near the out-spreading cloud. In this position the air is cold, and 

 you are in the shadow of the upper cloud, unless you sink low enough where 

 the sun may reach you under the overlapping cloud. Although the sun was 

 shining on me, the rain and small hail were rattling on the balloon. A rain- 

 bow was standing in and against the body of the meteor, or rather a pris- 

 matically colored arch the shape of a horse-shoe was reflected against it, and 

 as the point of observation changed laterally and perpendicularly, the per- 

 spective of this golden grotto changed its hues and forms. Above and 

 behind this arch there was going on the most terrific thunder, but no zig-zag 

 lightning was perceptible, only bright flashes like explosions of " Roman 



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