482 NATURE STUDY. 



Movements of the Clouds. How they rush along with 

 the wind, sometimes rolling and tumbling over one another 

 like children out of school. 



Forms and changes. How the children enjoy finding in 

 the sky mountains and palaces and forts and trees and 

 animals ! How interested they are in their shifting and 

 changing forms ! To many a child whose eyes have been 

 directed and guided cloudward the sky has become a veri- 

 table fairyland ; the sunset has disclosed glimpses of 

 heaven, with its pearly gates and golden streets and glit- 

 tering towers and winged messengers. 



Kinds. Large and small, white, gray, blue, dark, some- 

 times fleecy or feathery like the water dust or steam (feather 

 or cirrus clouds), sometimes darker and denser, like many 

 hills piled together (wool-pack or cumulus clouds), seme- 

 times in layers one above the other, or side by side, like 

 the boards in the floor (layer or stratus clouds), sometimes 

 black with rain coming from them (rain or nimbus clouds), 

 sometimes covering the whole sky with a gray veil, like 

 fog. 



Beauty. Due to light fleecy or " piled-up " appearance, 

 contrasting with the deep blue sky behind them, to the 

 endless variations in form and color, to the rich hues at 

 sunset or sunrise. Perhaps the children can tell something 

 about the clouds in the moonlight. How much they add 

 to the sky and to the world and to our life, if we will but 

 look upward ! 



Relation to " steam " and fog. Bring out ways in which 

 clouds are like steam or water dust, and like fog, leading 

 up to idea that clouds are masses of water dust high in air. 

 Tell children how people on the tops of mountains can often 

 see the clouds on the mountain side below them, looking 

 like great masses of water dust or fog; how as they go 

 down the mountain side they get into the clouds, which are 



