66 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



with accuracy. She has a written and a spoken lan 

 guage, and the misinterpretation of a single word may 

 reverse the true meaning of her sentences. All the 

 sounds of the elements, could we interpret them, would 

 convey to our minds some palpable ideas of the changes 

 in the weather ; for never is there a change in one of 

 the elements, but the others give some intimation of it 

 either to the ear, or to the eye. These mystic words 

 we can never understand, unless we study them in con 

 nection with those written signs which are painted on 

 the skies, in the forms of the clouds, in the aspects of 

 the heavenly bodies, in the dews upon the grass, in the 

 frost upon the trees and windows, and the meteoric 

 phenomena displayed by day and by night. If we find 

 that what nature has telegraphed upon the heavens 

 does not seem to correspond with the minuter signs 

 which she exhibits upon the dews, the flowers, and 

 other vegetation, the fault is in our interpretations of her 

 language. 



Let us not despair, however, in our attempts to ac 

 quire a knowledge of these signs. By constantly noting 

 their details, and observing them under all their differ 

 ent modes of combination, we may arrive at a degree 

 of accuracy which may enable' us to predict a storm 

 with as much certainty as we now predict an eclipse. 

 We are to seek for these signs not merely upon the 

 heavens and out of doors ; for within doors, by our par 

 lor fireside or our kitchen hearth, many phenomena are 

 revealed to us which are as important as the prophetic 

 clouds upon the sky, or the dews and vapors upon the 

 plain. When a storm is about to gather over our 

 heads, the vapor from the boiling water over our kitchen 

 fires, hastens to join the gathering clouds, and the water 

 is more rapidly evaporated. This is probably a bare- 



