218 CURL CLOUD. 



stranger, when he sees a light white mist trailing 

 in detached parts, among the crags and hollows 

 of the mountain above him, lighter to all appear- 

 ance than the lighest " sea-rack," which plays 

 by the beach on a May morning, so dry that it will 

 not " dew" on a cobweb, heeds it no more than 

 he would heed that. But when he enters it, he 

 finds his mistake. The drops are no doubt much 

 smaller than those of "lowland" mists ; but they 

 are three to one at the least, and they do not hit 

 and dash off by means of the force with which 

 they strike, as the large drops do. They all adhere; 

 and when it is quite calm, as it often is when they 

 are falling, and when the cloud just obscures but 

 does not hide the sun, the stranger has a chance 

 of being "wet through," before common notice 

 has made him sure that it is raining. The minute- 

 ness of the drops not only allows the solar light to 

 come dimly through the cloud, but it causes that 

 cloud to look white at a distance, which increases 

 the deception. 



Nor is it only when they form around moun- 

 tains that these elevated clouds produce rain, or 

 lead to its production, for they have similar effects 

 when they form in the atmosphere. The " curl 

 cloud" which appears streaky in the uppermost 

 part of the sky, and the circle of vapour which is 

 often seen round the moon, are much more certain 

 indications of bad weather, than much denser clouds 

 that lie lower. A cloud that just floats is as ready 

 to fall at any one height as at any other ; but the 

 higher up that it is the less action puts it into 

 motion downward. The higher cloud thus, as it 

 were, commands the whole atmospheric action ; 

 and though the heat and drought of the earth and 

 7 



