CURL-CLOUD. 211 



may be a very wetting rain on the mountain. Every 

 one must know the saying that " a Scotch mist will 

 wet an Englishman to the skin;" and the fact is 

 correct, both as to Scotch and to all other mists, 

 provided they be mountain mists, and at a sufficient 

 height. A stranger, when he sees a light white 

 mist trailing in detached parts, among the crags and 

 hollows of the mountain above him, lighter to all 

 appearance than the lightest " sea-rack," which 

 plays by the beach on a May morning, so dry that it 

 will not " dew" on a cobweb, heeds it no more than 

 he would heed that. But when he enters it he finds 

 his mistake. The drops are no doubt much smaller 

 than those of " lowland" mists ; but they are three 

 to one at the least, and they do not hit and dash off 

 by means of the force with which they strike, as 

 the large drops do. They all adhere ; and when it 

 is quite calm, as it often is when they are falling, 

 and when the cloud just obscures but does not hide 

 the sun, the stranger has a chance of being " wet 

 through," before common notice has made him sure 

 that it is raining. The minuteness of the drops not 

 only allows the solar light to come dimly through the 

 cloud, but it causes that cloud to look white at a 

 distance, which increases the deception. 



Nor is it only when they form around mountains 

 that these elevated clouds produce rain, or lead to 

 its production, for they have similar effects when 

 they form in the atmosphere. The " curl-cloud" 

 which appears streaky in the uppermost part of the 

 sky, and the circle of vapour which is often seen 

 round the moon, are much more certain indications 

 of bad weather than much denser clouds that lie 

 lower. A cloud that just floats is as ready to fall at 

 any one height as at any other ; but the higher up 

 that it is the less action puts it into motion down- 

 ward. The higher cloud thus, as it were, commands 

 the whole atmospheric action ; and though the heat 

 and drought of the earth and lower part of the atmo- 



