376 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
conceptions of the Heavens for which we 
are indebted to astronomical Science. The 
mechanical contrivances by which it was 
attempted to explain the movements of the 
heavenly bodies were clumsy and _ prosaic 
when compared with the great discovery of 
Newton. Ruskin is unjust I think when he 
says “Science teaches us that the clouds are 
a sleety mist; Art, that they are a golden 
throne.” I should be the last to disparage 
the debt we owe to Art, but for our knowl- 
edge, and even more, for our appreciation, 
feeble as even yet it is, of the overwhelming 
grandeur of the Heavens, we are mainly in- 
debted to Science. 
There is scarcely a form which the fancy of 
Man has not sometimes detected in the clouds, 
—chains of mountains, splendid cities, storms 
at sea, flights of birds, groups of animals, 
monsters of all kinds, —and our superstitious 
ancestors often terrified themselves by fantas- 
tic visions of arms and warriors and battles 
which they regarded as portents of coming 
calamities. There is hardly a day on which 
Clouds do not delight and surprise us by their 
SO 
