1883.] MODIFYING EFFECTS OP FORESTS. 117 



years to watch tlie extent of most of our storms, and this audi- 

 ence will scarcely believe me when I tell them I have known it to 

 rain almost two hours at a certain point during one of our summer 

 showers, raising a well four feet, when the breadth of that shower 

 in a north and south direction was scarcely three miles, and yet 

 such is the fact. 



To beget a storm two or more systems of clouds seem necessary, 

 of different temperatures and of such opposite electric states as to 

 attract each other — and when they thus embrace and commingle 

 with each other the bantling storm itself is born. There seems a 

 vital organizing force to storms, whose mysteries we cannot grasp 

 any more than we can the vital, life-giving energies of the animal 

 and vegetable world. We cannot ascend to the clouds or bring 

 them down upon us to handle and analyze. They are manifesta- 

 tions of that Infinite energy everywhere dominating around us ; 

 parts and parcels in the grand panorama of the forces of nature 

 making up the Divine life itself. While we may partake of the 

 blessed fruit of these activities, we must bow in silent, grateful 

 adoration to her dispensing hand without fathoming the mysteries 

 that enshroud her. 



I would not be dogmatic or assume the role of school-master to 

 others — I choose to suggest rather than instruct — and yet when a 

 man's life-long experience and observations are confirmed by the 

 teachings of others, he must respect them, though in antagonism 

 with the popular current. The human soul is easily varied by its 

 surroundings, like the magnetic needle — it must be watched and 

 guarded in its processes or it will vary in its reckonings from the ways 

 of truth and justice. Thomas B. Butler was an ardent lover of na- 

 ture, and if he could not penetrate her mysteries, he loved to watch 

 her ways and point them out to others — and we shall never do justice 

 to his memory until the popular mind more fully grasps the mys- 

 teries of the clouds and learns to track the paths of our storms. 

 Had he lived to vindicate his fame, the laurel crown so justly his 

 would not have been worn by other brows, while the apathy of 

 his native state had given way to national recognition. The 

 ardent, genuine lover of truth rarely lives to fulfil his mission — as 

 he nears the goal of his ambition and is about to scale the barrier 

 to the ways of the Almighty, a more sublime mission awaits him 

 above, and he is transferred into the Divine presence itself. 



