148 Prognostics of the Weather. 



the clouds decay, and dissolve themselves into air ; but it is 

 otherwise when they are collected out of it. 



" In nubem cogitur aer." VIRGIL. 



Before heavy rain every cloud rises bigger than the 

 former, and all the clouds are in a growing state. 



This is most remarkable on the approach of a thunder- 

 storm, after the vapours have been copiously elevated, sus- 

 pended in the sky by the heat, and are highly charged with 

 electrical fire; small fragments of flying clouds increase and 

 assemble together, till in a short time they cover the sky. 



When the clouds are formed like fleeces, deep, and dense 

 towards the middle, and very white at the edges, with the 

 sky very bright and blue about them, they are of a frosty 

 coldness, and will soon fall either in hail, snow, or in hasty 

 showers of rain. 



If clouds are seen to breed high in the air, in their white 

 trains, like locks of wool, or the tails of horses, they show 

 that the vapour, as it is collected, is irregularly spread and 

 scattered by contrary winds above ; the consequence of 

 which will soon be a wind below, and probably a rain 

 with it. 



If the clouds, as they come forward, seem to diverge from 

 a point in the horizon, a wind may be expected from that 

 quarter, or the opposite. 



When a general cloudiness covers the sky above, and 

 there are small black fragments of clouds, like smoke, flying 

 underneath, which some call messengers, and others, Noah's 

 Ark, because they sail over the other clouds, like the ark 

 upon the waters, rain is not far off, and it will probably be 

 lasting. 



There is no surer sign of rain than two different currents 

 of clouds, especially if the undermost flies fast before the 

 wind ; and if two such currents appear in the hot weather 

 of the summer, they show that a thunder-storm is gathering ; 

 but the preparation which precedes a storm of thunder is 

 so generally understood, that it is needless to insist upon it 

 minutely. 



