CHAP. 2. 1. OF CLOUDS. 49 



The cirri however frequently change to the 

 cirrocumulus; and in the progress of the change 

 the cirrous fibres seem to shoot out laterally 

 into transverse and intersecting streaks, they 

 first change to cirrocumulus at their points of 

 intersection, which thicken, approach to the 

 orbicular form, and seem like centres from 

 which fibres eradiate; thus a sort of stelliforni 

 cirrocumulus is effected, which either goes on 

 changing into a more perfect feature of that 

 cloud, or changes again to cirrus or to cirrostratus, 

 or evaporates. It often happens that, as the 

 cloud is gently moving on, the spectator has 

 not an opportunity of watching it throughout 

 all its metamorphoses. 



when he speaks of the " Lambeaux et fragments de nuages 

 qui sont comme dissemines dans les differentes regions de 

 1'air, les uns sont plus hauts (cirri, &c.) les autres plus bas 

 (scud, &c.) et flottent au gre des vents de divers cotes." He 

 speaks of them as vehicles of the electric fluid, and as useful 

 in conveying away the matter of lightening, which would 

 otherwise be oftener embodied in large clouds, and strike the 

 earth with terrible violence. Thus he seems to have had some 

 faint notion of an office performed by clouds, which more 

 recent discoveries have ascribed to the cirrus. See Berthol. 

 Del'Elec.Met.t.II.p. 113. 



