34 



NATURE 



[May 10, 1883 



CIRRIFORM CLOUDS 



T N a " Note on a Proposed Scheme for the Observation 

 ■*■ of the Upper Clouds'' the Rev. W. Clement Ley has 

 written an abstract of part of a large work on clouds, 

 which he is now preparing for publication. This note 

 has been circulated with a view of obtaining suggestions 

 on the scheme of classification, observation, and tele- 

 graphy, which the writer has submitted to his colleagues 

 of the Committee on Cirrus observations, nominated by 

 the International Meteorological Committee in 1882. 



The author follows the primary outlines of cloud- 

 classification proposed by Luke Howard, dividing the 

 objects of observation into cirriforms, cumuliforms, 

 stratiforms, and composites ; while in the subdivision of 

 these primary types he has been induced by reasons, the 

 cogency of which he hopes to demonstrate, to deviate very 

 considerably from Howard's classification. The true 

 cirriforms, to the discussion of which the note is re- 

 stricted, are divided by Mr. Ley as follows : cirrus, 

 cirro-filum, cirro-velum (with its variety mammatum), 

 cirro-nebula, and cirro-granum. The author has been, 

 " after many years devoted to the consideration of the 

 subject, reluctantly compelled to give up the employment 

 of the two terms ' cirro-stratus ' and ' cirro-cumulus.' 

 Their use has led to endless confusion. In point of struc- 

 ture the clouds usually called cirro-cumuli belong essen- 

 tially to the higher stratiforms, consisting of nubecules 

 separate, or partly coalescing, occupying a layer of 

 atmosphere of very small vertical thickness, but of very 

 great horizontal extent, and they are not formed in nature 

 by those processes which are productive of clouds either 

 of the cirrus or of the cumulus type. They are not, in 

 fact, either in appearance or in mode of physical forma- 

 tion, either compounds of cirrus with cumulus or hybrids 

 between cirrus and cumulus. Therefore in practice the 

 use of the word cirro-cumulus has led to a large number 

 of clouds of no great elevation being classified among the 

 cirriforms, a result which was of little consequence when 

 the laws regulating the upper currents of the atmosphere 

 had received no examination, but which must be abso- 

 lutely fatal to a scheme based upon those laws, according 

 to which new and most valuable results will be attained. 

 The name cirro-stratus is almost equally objectionable, 

 and for similar reasons." 



Six pages of this no'.e are devoted to instructions on a 

 system of observing and reporting by telegraph the struc- 

 ture and movements of the upper clouds ; and the author 

 shows that, if this system be adopted on an extensive scale, 

 results of great practical importance may be anticipated. 

 The indispensable prerequisite is a clear and scientific 

 classification of clouds according to physical structure. 



SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS IN CHINA AND 

 JAPAN 



A VARIOUS steps in the progress of China and Japan 

 » in the adoption of Western science and educational 

 methods have from time to lime been noticed in these 

 columns. To the popular mind the names of the two 

 countries are synonymous with rigid unreasoning con- 

 servatism and with rapid change respectively. The 

 grave, dignified Chinese, who maintains his own dress 

 and habits even when isolated amongst strangers, and 

 whose motto appears to be, Stare super vias antiquas, is 

 popularly believed to be animated by a sullen, obstinate 

 hostility towards any introduction from the West, however 

 plain its value may be; while his gayer and more mer- 

 curial neighbour, the Japanese, is regarded as the true 

 child of the old age of the West, following assiduously in 

 its parent' s footsteps, and pursuing obediently the path 

 marked out by European experience. There is consider- 

 able misconception in this, as indeed there is at all times 

 in the English popular mind with regard to strange 



pjoples. Broadly speaking, it is no doubt correct to say 

 that Japan has adopted Western inventions and scientific 

 appliances with avidity ; that she has shown a desire for 

 change which is abnormal, and a disposition to destroy 

 her charts and sail away into unsurveyed seas, while 

 China remains pretty much where she always was. She is 

 now, with some exceptions, what she was twenty, two 

 hundred, perhaps two thousand years ago, while a new 

 Japan has been created in fifteen years. All this, we say, 

 is true, but it is not the whole truth. China also has had 

 her changes ; not indeed so marked or rapid, not so much 

 in the nature of a volte-face on all her past as those of her 

 neighbour. The radical difference between the two 

 countries in this respect we take to be this : that while 

 Japan loves change for the sake of change, China dislikes 

 it, and will only adopt it when it is clearly demonstrated 

 to her that change is absolutely necessary. To the 

 Japanese change appears to be a delightful excitement, to 

 the Chinese a distasteful necessity ; to the former whatever 

 is must be wrong, to the latter whatever is is right. As a 

 consequence of this difference between the two peoples, 

 when China once makes a step forward it is generally 

 after much deliberation, and is never retraced. Japan is 

 constantly undertaking new schemes with little care or 

 thought for the morrow, but with the applause of inju- 

 dicious foreign friends. In a short time she discovers that 

 she has underrated the expense or exaggerated the resulis, 

 and her projects are straightway abandoned as rapidly 

 and thoughtlessly as they were commenced. Swift sug- 

 gested as a suitable subject for a philosophical writer a 

 history of human projects which were never carried out j 

 the historian of modern Japan finds these at every turn. 

 Where, for example, are the results of the great surveys, 

 trigonometrical and others, which were commenced in 

 Yezo and the main island about ten years ago ? A large, 

 expensive, but highly competent foreign staff was en- 

 gaged, and worked for a few years ; but suddenly the 

 whole survey department was swept away, and the valu- 

 able instruments are, or were recently, lying rusting in a 

 warehouse in Tokio. The same story may be told of 

 scores of other scientific or educational undertakings in 

 Japan. An able and careful writer, Col. H. S. Palmer, 

 R.E., who has recently, with a friendly and sympathetic 

 eye, examined the whole field of recent Japanese pro- 

 gress, in the British Quarterly Review, is forced to 

 acknowledge this. " Once having recognised," says this 

 officer, " that progress is essential to welfare, and having 

 resolved, first amongst the nations of the East, to throw 

 off past traditions and mould their civilisation after that 

 of Western countries, it was not in the nature of the 

 lively and impulsive Japanese to advance along the path 

 of reform with the calmness and circumspection that 

 might have been possible to a people of less active tem- 

 perament. Without doubt many foreign institutions were 

 at first adopted rather too hastily, and the passing diffi- 

 culties which now beset Japan are to some extent the 

 inevitable result." It would be blindness to deny that the 

 net result of the Japanese efforts is progress of a very 

 remarkable kind, but it is a progress which in many 

 respects lacks the firm and abiding characteristics of 

 Chinese movements. 



The proverb, Chi va piano va sano, which was recom- 

 mended ten years ago to Japanese attention by an eminent 

 English official, and apparently disregarded by them, has 

 been adopted by their continental neighbours. To the 

 blandishments of pushing diplomatists or acute pro- 

 moters, the Chinese are deaf. However we may felicitate 

 ourselves on our inventions, scientific appliances, " the 

 railway and the steamship and the thoughts that shake 

 mankind," our progress, the newspapers, the penny post, 

 and what not, China will not adopt them simply because 

 ■we have found their value and are proud of them. But 

 if, within the range of her own experience, she finds the 

 advantage of these things, she will employ them with a 



