A SHARP LOOKOUT 5 



signs; to-day is the progenitor of to-morrow. When 

 the atmosphere is telescopic, and distant objects 

 stand out unusually clear and sharp, a storm is near. 

 We are on the crest of the wave, and the depression 

 follows quickly. It often happens that clouds are 

 not so indicative of a storm as the total absence of 

 clouds. In this state of the atmosphere the stars 

 are unusually numerous and bright at night, which 

 is also a bad omen. 



I find this observation confirmed by Humboldt. 

 "It appears," he says, "that the transparency of 

 the air is prodigiously increased when a certain 

 quantity of water is uniformly diffused through it." 

 Again, he says that the mountaineers of the Alps 

 "predict a change of weather when, the air being 

 calm, the Alps covered with perpetual snow seem 

 on a sudden to be nearer the observer, and their 

 outlines are marked with great distinctness on the 

 azure sky." He further observes that the same 

 condition of the atmosphere renders distant sounds 

 more audible. 



There is one redness in the east in the morning 

 that means storm, another that means wind. The 

 former is broad, deep, and angry; the clouds look 

 like a huge bed of burning coals just raked open; 

 the latter is softer, more vapory, and more widely 

 extended. Just at the point where the sun is going 

 to rise, and some minutes in advance of his coming, 

 there sometimes rises straight upward a rosy column ; 

 it is like a shaft of deeply dyed vapor, blending 

 with and yet partly separated from the clouds, and 



