24 OF CLOUDS. CHAP. 1. 8. 



change seems to consist in the uniting of par- 

 ticles of water differently electrified, which, 

 having a mutual attraction for each other, 

 closely unite, forming visible drops of water, 

 which therefore gravitate and descend in rain. 

 The nature of this process will, perhaps, be 

 better understood if I advert to what frequently 

 happens in the rapid production of showers. 

 The cumulus, sailing along in a lower region, ap- 

 pears retarded in its progress, increases upwards, 

 and inosculates with a cirrus or cirrostratus 

 above; then the whole changes into cumulo- 

 stratus, and spreads horizontally, forming a 

 dense sheet; a sort of crown of cirrose fibres 

 extends upward from the superior part, while 

 loose flocky cumuli, entering from below, seem 

 to nourish the growing nimbus, which, increas- 

 ing in density, at length descends in rain, the 

 drops or streams of which appear, by inoscula- 

 tion in falling, to acquire magnitude in their 

 progress to the earth. After the storm has 

 spent itself, the mass is again disunited, and 

 formed into the different modifications: the 

 cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus, may again 

 be seen in the higher air, while the remaining 

 part of the broken nimbus flies along in a lower 

 station, in the form of that loose, flocky, and 



