METEOROLOGY. 







NEW CLASSIFICATIOX OF CLOUDS. 



By Professor Andre PoiiY, 

 Late director of the ohservatory at Havana. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



The meteorologists of antiquity felt the need of distinguishing the 

 different appearances of clouds, but were, at the onset, completely be- 

 wildered by the great variety of form which they assumed, api^arently 

 without order. Aristotle* first studied the phenomena of clouds in rela- 

 tion to their optical properties — their power of reflecting and refracting 

 light, and the production of rainbows, halos, and coronas. Theophras- 

 tus,t his disciple, afterward vaguely observed the forms of clouds rela- 

 tive to the predictions of change of weather. He remarked, for exam- 

 ple, that the appearance of straight horizontal layers of clouds on the 

 summits of mountains is an indication of wind and rain; but these 

 attempts evidently must have failed, because the natural classification 

 of objects in the time of Theophrastus was unknown. It was not until 

 1801 that the great naturalist Lamarck, | and in the year after the cele- 

 brated English meteorologist Luke Howard, § perceived the possibility of 

 referring the clouds to some fundamental types, following the exami)le of 

 the natural classification for living beings adopted by Linneus. Lamarck, 

 who pointed out the importance of the study of the forms of clouds, de- 

 termined six i)rincipal types, which he denominated clouds en balayurcs, 



* Aristotle. 



t Theophrastus. — Liber de ventis, et opuscula de signis pluviarum et tempestatis, 

 auct. Theoplirasto, in lat. vers, et illustr. apud Franciscum de Franciscis Bonaveutura, 

 Veuetiis, 1594, 4 parts, 1 vol., 4to ; Eresii Tlieoiihrasti qua siipersunt opera et oxcerpta 

 Librorum quatvior tomis compreheusa Jo. Gottlob Scbneideri, Lijisise, 1818-21, 5 vol., 

 8vo, vol. ii, pp. 466-476, 599-605 ; vol. iv, pp. 719-756 ; vol. v, pp. 163-173. 



t Lamarck. — Amiuaire meteorologiqiie, Paris, an x. No. 3, p. 149 ; an xi. No. 4, pp. 

 126-128 ; an xii, No. 5, p. 159. 



^ How.u^D. — Tillocb's Pbilosopbical Magazine, 1803, vol. xvi, pp. 97-107, 344-357; vol. 

 xvii, pp. 5-11, pi. vi, vii, viii, vritb some changes not affecting the nomenclature in 

 Eee's Cyclopaedia, 1819, vol. viii, art. cloud; in Nicholson's Philosophical .Journal, 1812, 

 vol. XXX, pp. 35-62, without plates ; in supplement to the EncyclopajdiaBritaunica, 1824, 

 vol. iii, pp. 202-205, art. cloud, with plates, and the addition of a set of new terms for the 

 modifications, intended for the use of English readers ; The Climate of London, London, 

 1833, vol. i, pp. xxxix-lxxii ; On the Modifications of Clouds, and on the Principles of 

 their Production, Suspension, and Destruction, being the substance of an essay read 

 before the Askesian Society in the session fi-om 1802 to 1803, issued separately, in 1832, 

 London, 8vo., without plates ; id , London, 1864, in 4to, with lithographs. 



