434 METEOROLOGY. 



out below tlie faulty iuterpretatiou wliicli lias been given by all the 

 writers to the description of Howard's two types of clouds, the stratus 

 and nimbus, then the defects of this nomenclature, which I reject, and 

 the new classilication which I substitute, although since the time of 

 Howard no other classification having been hitherto proi^osed, the fol- 

 lowing are some partial attempts which have been made on the subject. 

 In 1815 Thomas J. M. Forster* reproduced, with some remarks, 

 Howard's description of clouds, adding an English nomenclature of 

 common names. In 1817 A. Miillerf proposed the removal of some ob- 

 scurities in Howard's descriptions, founded upon observations which he 

 had carried on for twenty years at Vienna, in the north of Germany, 

 upon the northern and southern slopes of the Alps, on the banks of the 

 Ehine, and in France. In 1832 the celebrated meteorologist Kamtz| 

 determined a new form of clouds under the name of strato-cumulus, or 

 night-clouds; that is to say, the reverse of Howard's cumulo- stratus. 

 But before his death, M. Kamtz himself acknowledged to me that he 

 no longer attached any importance to his strato-cumulus , and that I could 

 erase it from the nomenclature of couds. In 1857-58 W. S. Jesons§ 

 published two notes upon the form of cirrus and other clouds. He 

 endeavored to account for their formation by laboratory- experiments, 

 which he had made with vapor of water. In 18G3 the lamented Ad- 

 miral Fitz Eoy, II having in charge the meteorological department of 

 the Board of Trade, (London,) proposed the atloption of an augmenta- 

 tive termination in onus, and a diminutive in itus, to the nomenclature 

 of Howard, in the following manner : From cirrus he forms cirronus 

 and cirritus ; from cirro-stratus, cirrono-stratus and cirrito-stratiis, and 

 so on. IsTot only does this modification refer to the less or greater 

 quantity of clouds without changing the primitive form, but it is 

 subject to great error in practice without being warranted in this 

 by either the observation or the plates of Fitz Eoy. Finally, in 1863, 

 I proposed to the Academy of Sciences of Paris the determination of 

 the new types, which I have named pallium {pallio-cirrus and pallio- 

 Gumulus) and fracto-cumulus, the description of which will be found 

 farther on.^ When one considers the imperfection of Howard's old 

 classification, the difficulties of distinguishing each stratum of clouds, 



* Forster. — Untersucliungeu ilber die Wolken nud andere Erscheiuungen in der 

 Atmosphilre, Aus. d. Franz, 2. Anflage, Leipzig, 1819 ; Researches about Atmospheric 

 Phajnomena, London, 1815, 2d edition, pp. 1-113; id., London, 1823, 3d edition, pp. 1-113. 



t MuLLER.— Gilbert's Annalen der Physili, 1817, vol. Iv, p. 102; Bibliothi^quo univer- 

 selle do Gdn^ve, 1817, vol. v, pp. 6-12. 



X Kamtz.— Lohrbuch der Meteorologie, Leipzig, 1831, vol. i, p. 377 ; Vorlesnngen liber 

 Meteorologie, Halle, 1840 ; id., translated by Ch. Martins, Paris, 1843, p. 115, pi. iii. 



§ Jesons.— Philosophical Magazine, 1857, vol. xiv, pp. 22-35 ; 1858, vol. xv, pp. 241-255. 



II FiTZ-RoY.— The Weather Book, London, 1863, p. 391, pi. ix, x. 



IT PoliY. — Sur deux nouveaux types de nuages observ6s a la Ha vane, denomm6s pal- 

 lium (pallio-cirrus et pallio-cumulus) et fracto-cumulus— Comptes-rcndus de l'Acad6inie 

 'ties Sciences de Paris, 1863, vol. Ivi., p. 361 ; Annuaire de la Socidtd Metdorologiquc de 

 France, 1863, vol. xi, iJ. 53. 



