CHAP. 7. 1. OF ELECTRICITY. 213 



below y whereas the denser feature more often 

 accompanies a calmer air, particularly the dead 

 calm which precedes a Storm on a sultry 

 summer's afternoon. There are other kinds 

 of cirrocumulus, as I have already mentioned, 

 which attend fine warm weather, which are 

 large distinct and well defined aggregates 

 arranged all over the welkin. To me it is 

 somewhat doubtful what particular kind of 

 cloud Virgil,* Lucretius,f and Pliny ,| alluded 

 to as being like fleeces of wool, and which 

 accompanied rainy weather. The descriptions 

 of them by the Roman poets, particularly by 

 Virgil in his Georgicks, seem to have been 

 imitated from Aratus in his Diosemeia, who 

 represented them as signs of Rain.|| 



* Tenuia nee lanae per coelum vellera ferri. 



Virg. Geor. 



I must refer the reader to my edition of the Diosemeia of 

 Aratus. 



t Concipiunt etiani multum quoque saepe marinum 

 Humorem, veluti pendentia vellera lanae 

 Quum supera magnum venti mare nubila portant. 



Lucret. vi. 504.' 

 % Plin. Hist. Nat. xviii. 35. 

 ]| noXXaxi 8* pYO[^V(jav vsfwv vs^&a. arpQT'stfjQiQsv, 

 Oix j,aXAjcrra rtOKOuriv loocora ivoa'A/.ovIca. 



Aral. Dios. 207. 



