8 OF CLOUDS. CHAP. l.2. 



a lower stratum. The cirrus, too, is sometimes 

 interposed and conducting between two other 

 clouds at some distance from each other. All 

 the phenomena which I have witnessed, since 

 my attention was directed to nepheology, are 

 reconcileable with this supposition: and it is 

 probable that a cirrus ceasing to conduct, ceases 

 to be a cirrus, and that it either evaporates, or 

 passes to some of the other modifications: in 

 doing which, it may often be seen in an inter- 

 mediate state, partaking more or less of the 

 modification into which it may be changing, and 

 exhibiting, in the progress of its metamorphosis, 

 very various and very beautiful appearances. 



I have elsewhere had occasion to notice the 

 long continued appearance, and the multiform 

 and everchanging configurations of this and 

 the other modifications, unattended by rain, 

 and accompanied by dry, variable, and generally 

 easterly winds, the abundance of nocturnal 

 meteors, and the intermitted actions of De 

 Luc's aerial electroscope, as indicative of a very 

 peculiar state of the electric atmosphere; and, 

 I believe, not a very healthy one. 



