28 OF CLOUDS. CHAP. 1. 10. 



we arrive thus at the region where the CIRRUS 

 light and elevated obeys every impulse or in- 

 vitation of that fluid, which, while it finds a 

 conductor, ever operates in silence, but which, 

 embodied and insulated in a denser collection of 

 watery atoms, sooner or later bursts its barrier, 

 leaps down in lightning, and glides through 

 the NIMBUS from its elevated station to the 

 earth." 



SECTION X. 



THOUGH the above theory appears very 

 plausible, and is certainly in many respects 

 accurately correct, yet there are other theories 

 which are opposed to it in many particulars, and 

 which seem likewise to have some pretensions 

 to credit. I shall proceed next to mention 

 some of these, and compare them with that of 

 M. Howard. It is contended by some that 

 the dew does not fall, but, on the contrary, 

 rises : the earth, it is said, retains the heat of 

 the day longer than the air immediately above 

 it: that evaporation being greater, according to 

 the proportion of heat which the water bears to 

 the air into which it evaporates, there becomes 



