NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 259 



hurled into it so quick that I had no opportunity of viewing its surroundings 

 outside, and must therefore confine this relation to its internal action. On 

 entering it, the motion of the air swung the balloon to and fro, as also around 

 in a circle, and a dismal howling noise accompanied this unpleasant and 

 sickening motion ; and in a few minutes thereafter was heard the falling of 

 heavy rain below, resembling in sound a cataract. The color of the cloud, 

 internally, was of a milky hue, somewhat like a dense body of steam in the 

 open air, and the cold was so sharp that my beard became bushy with hoar- 

 frost. As there were no electrical explosions in this storm during my in- 

 carceration, it might have been borne comfortably enough but for the sea- 

 sickness occasioned by the agitated air-storm. Still, I could hear and see, 

 and even smell, everything close by and around. Little pellets of snow 

 (with an icy nucleus when broken) were pattering profusely around me in 

 promiscuous and confused disorder, and slight blasts of wind seemed oc- 

 casionally to penetrate this cloud laterally, notwithstanding there was an 

 upmoving column of wind all the while. This upmoving stream would 

 carry the balloon up to a point in the upper cloud, where its force was ex- 

 pended by the outspreading of its vapor, whence the balloon would be 

 thrown outward, fall down some distance, then be drawn into the vortex, 

 again to be carried upward to perform the same revolution until I had gono 

 through the cold furnace seven or eight times ; and all this time the smell 

 of sulphur, or what is now termed ozone, was perceptible, and I was sweat- 

 ing profusely from some cause unknown to me, unless it was from undue 

 excitement. The last time of descent in this cloud brought the balloon 

 through its base, where, instead of the pellets of snow, there was encountered 

 a drenching rain, with which I came down into a clear field, and the storm 

 passed on. This storm may have been accompanied with electrical dis- 

 charges after it left me, as it had the appearance of increase as it departed. 

 I may here mention that the people in the neighborhood informed me next 

 day that it deposited two pai-allel trains of hail some distance apart. I have 

 frequently since and before this occurrence witnessed storms while up in the 

 air, but a great distance off, sometimes four and five of them at the same 

 time in different parts of the heavens, and always in the months of May and 

 June, and never accompanied with electrical explosions when they were 

 small in dimensions. 



Tlmnckr Storms Viewed from the Earth, have not the characteristic shapes 

 lincated to the eve of the observer, as when viewed sidewisc from above. 



ti 



Neither does one discover the two plates of clouds joined in conic sections. 

 The upper cloud can be seen rolling outward, and black clouds below cen- 

 tering inward, but the whole seems to be nearly blended in one solid mass. 

 By close observation and practice it will soon be deduced that there are two 

 plates of clouds, even as viewed from the earth. In watching clouds care- 

 fully from the earth, it will be observed that vivid zig-zag flashes and heavy 

 peals are followed by copious showers. The rain drops, being positively 

 charged from the upper cloud, drop through a clear atmosphere, which is a 

 non-conductor, into the lower cloud, which is negatively electrified ; and if 

 the shower is too copious for the lower cloud's capacity to absorb it silently, 



