80 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



into which the outlying moisture of the atmosphere 

 is being constantly drawn and precipitated. It is 

 not properly the storm that travels, but the low 

 pressure, the storm impulse, the meteorological mag- 

 net that makes the storm wherever its presence may 

 be. The clouds are not watering-carts, that are 

 driven all the way from Arizona or Colorado to Eu- 

 rope, but growths, developments that spring up as 

 the Storm-deity moves his wand across the land. 

 In advance of the storm, you may often see the 

 clouds grow; the condensation of the moisture into 

 vapor is a visible process ; slender, spiculae-like clouds 

 expand, deepen, and lengthen ; in the rear of the low 

 pressure, the reverse process, or the wasting of the 

 clouds, may be witnessed. In summer, the recruit- 

 ing of a thunder-storm is often very marked. I 

 have seen the clouds file as straight across the sky 

 toward a growing storm or thunder-head in the hori- 

 zon as soldiers hastening to the point of attack or 

 defense. They would grow more and more black 

 and threatening as they advanced, and actually 

 seemed to be driven by more urgent winds than cer- 

 tain other clouds. They were, no doubt, more in 

 the line of the storm influence. 



All our general storms are cyclonic in their char- 

 acter, that is, rotary and progressive. Their type 

 may be seen in every little whirlpool that goes down 

 the swollen current of the river; and in our hemi- 

 sphere they revolve in the same direction, namely, 

 from right to left, or in opposition to the hands of 

 a watch. When the water finds an outlet through 



