88 Progressive Changes of Matter. [Feb., 



clear sun. The cloud for want of a saturated atmosphere to 

 keep up the rain, becomes the mere skeleton of a storm, and is 

 scattered by the winds. We may perhaps account satisfactorily 

 for the intervals of rain and fair weather. Did condensation al- 

 ways take place at a certain point of saturation, and never exhaust 

 the atmosphere below that, the sky would be perpetually over- 

 cast with clouds, and a constant drizzling of rain upon the earth 

 would follow. When we contemplated the varied and wonder- 

 ful movements among the elements caused by the process of evap- 

 oration and condensation of water, we cannot fail to behold 

 another of nature's balance beams so nicely adjusted that it is sus- 

 ceptible of motion by the slightest touch. Can man conceive of 

 any motion of matter so minute, so silent and so effective, as the 

 vanishing of water? Can any wonder be more imposing than to be- 

 hold the majestic storm gathered out of a clear transparent at- 

 mosphere? So it is the ascent and descent of water, is but the vas- 

 cillation between these two opposing influences. To the student 

 of Nature, what lesson can he learn more interesting than the 

 laws by the force of which storms arise, move and are destroyed. 

 And to contemplate the extraordinary changes, matter undergoes 

 when coming within the influence of these laws. W'ho could cal- 

 culate on looking through a fluid, so thin and clear as to see v.ith- 

 out a dimmed medium, the motions of the planetary orbs, that it 

 contained all the elements that would bring forth perhaps in a few 

 hours, the majestic cloud, the portending storm and the drench- 

 ing rain, and out of this commotion of the elements would issue 

 forth the fearful flashes of electricity follov/ed by the terrific peals 

 of a riven atmosphere. 



In early childhood we may have formed an idea that the clouds 

 always existed somewhere, that when they passed over the hills 

 and disappeared, they wandered about until they were moved back 

 again by a veering wind. In the same category of thought, we 

 may have seen in the clouds by fancy's vision, monster animals, 

 such as whales, and bears, and the giosser order of quadrupeds. 

 Ships and castles, and hoary headed giants were not wanting to 

 fill up the back ground. Vv^ith some peradventure the charms of 

 contemplating the clouds, and the storm may have ceased, and the 

 recollections of the past may revive in their minds, nothing but the 

 fancied images of early youth. To an eye that has been accus- 

 tomed to look upon things in their true light, and consider them 

 in their proper characters, even to such a vision, what colors can 

 be more beautiful and varied than those seen at the rising and 

 setting sun. While men have been allured away by the attrac- 

 tions of facinating colors and imitative forms spread on canvass 

 by human hands, they have lost Ihe pleasure of contemplating 

 brighter colors and a purer drapery, that adorn the heavens. But 



