CHAP. 2. 4. OF CLOUDS. 57 



composed of numerous eminences, or lobes of 

 cloud. I have not observed what peculiarities 

 of weather these cumuli accompany. 



It is curious to watch the formation of 

 cumuli in the morning, and trace them, when it 

 is possible, from the minute specks of cloud 

 which, here and there, seem to form out of the 

 atmosphere, to those large masses which move 

 majestically along in the wind, and convey 

 water from place to place for the irrigation of 

 the earth. In fair weather, soon after sunrise, 

 a small cloud appears; this increases, others 

 form near it, and they fall into one another as 

 if attracted; a large mass is at length upraised, 

 and then all the smaller ones which form in its 

 neighbourhood are soon lost, while the large 

 one is augmented, and the spectator, though he 

 seldom sees it in actual congression, feels no 

 doubt that the disappearance of the smaller, and 

 augmentation of the larger cloud, be owing to 

 the larger mass having attracted the smaller 

 into itself. It becomes a question, however, 

 why the smaller clouds are lost to appearance 

 before they reach and are quite drawn into the 

 larger one? Possibly when the small cloud is 

 very near with most of its vapours drawn away, 

 the rest rush into the larger; as a magnet, when 



