HALCYON DAYS. 



is commonly unusual brightness) the wind may keep 

 its point all the morning, till about twelve o'clock, 

 without a particle of curl-cloud, or any one suspi- 

 cious appearance, save the unusual fineness of the 

 day and purity of the air. Now although those 

 treacherous days were known and named " halcyon 

 days," by the ancients, and are still well known to 

 the northern fishermen by the name of " weather 

 gads," that is, worn, weak, or cracked parts of the 

 weather, yet they are not much heeded by or- 

 dinary observers. Well, about twelve or one on 

 one of these days, when it is delightfully clear, and 

 at the same time most intensely hot, in conse- 

 quence of there being no evaporation to cool the 

 air ; and when, in consequence of there being no 

 evaporation, the leaves do not languish as they do 

 in a dry atmosphere ; a little cloud, with an edge 

 as well defined as if it were a perfect solid, makes 

 its appearance in the point of the horizon just 

 opposite to the wind. If it happen to be in the 

 point opposite to the sun too, and in some places 

 it is generally from that point, it is at first as white 

 as snow, and might pass for the summit of a dis- 

 tant snowy ridge. There is no light cloud strew- 

 ing before it, as there generally is in the case of 

 those clouds that ride quietly on "their own 

 wind." Its whiteness is a proof of its density ; 

 for it shows that it has body enough to reflect the 

 entire light of the sun, and so the shady side of it 

 will be as black as the sunny side is white. [It 

 is the same kind of treacherous appearance which 

 we have in the white curl-clouds, they are white, 

 not because they are rare, but because they are 

 dense, and the whiter the denser]. 



The firm outline is occasioned by the resistance 

 which the cloud encounters, and the pressing of 



