220 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No 428 



Sucli faulty and inaccurate work must necessarily shake the 

 confidence of scholars in the trustworthiness of the results of lin- 

 guistic methods and theories such as those herein criticised. 



To allow etymologies and methods of linguistic research such 

 as those just criticised to pass unchallenged, and to leave them 

 without pointing out the misconceptions upon which they are 

 based and the fanciful reasonings wrought in their support, would 

 be tantamount to accepting error and fancy for truth. Although 

 it is proper to deprecate "wasting our time in minute verbal 

 criticism of the work of our fellow-students," yet it is difiScult to 

 avoid seeing that it is imperative on scholars, in every depart- 

 ment of science, to test the work of their fellow- investigators by 

 rigid and discriminating analysis; and, if they fail to perform 

 this their most evident duty, the student unfamiliar with the 

 subject-matter will be left to assume that faulty and inaccurate 

 work rests on a foundation of fact, and will be more than likely, 

 especially in the beginning of his career, to make it the basis of 

 further research, and, of course, new error. 



In conclusion, it should be borne in mind that those who will not, 

 personally and without preconceptions, study this language, and 

 who appear to be unable to see any thing on which the light of their 

 theories does not fall, and who do not " profess to distinguish the 

 niceties of Indian pronunciation," although these so-called nice 

 distinctions are, in fact, the marks and indices of essential gram- 

 matic and morphologic elements, must not hope to accomplish, in 

 the domain of Iroquoian etymology and morphology, trustworthy 

 and accurate work. J. N. B. Hewitt. 



WashiDgton, DO., Jan. 28. 



A Double Motion of Clouds. 



It is generally accepted that our storms and high areas drift in 

 the upper currents of the atmosphere, and that the direction of 

 motion of clouds will give us important information as to the 

 direction of the former. The present writer has devoted most 

 careful attention to this subject for more than three years and a 

 half, and has found that while clouds, especially the higher forms, 

 have a general tendency to move in the same direction as storms, 

 that is, from west to east, yet they are a very poor guide to follow 

 in special instances, and they fail especially at times when such 

 assistance is the most needed. This may be in part due to the 

 fact that the upper clouds cannot be seen in the neighborhood of 

 storms, and in part to the difficulty of estimating the height of 

 clouds. In the case of high areas, the clouds frequently are less 

 than three-tenths, and, if so, their direction does not appear on 

 the maps. Much time has been spent in watching the motion of 

 clouds at all hours of the day, and it is possible that a very im- 

 portant factor in their motion has been omitted. 



Every one has remarked the beautiful cirrus stripes which are 

 often seen traversing the sky, usually from south-west to north- 

 east. I have gleaned the following statements from various 

 authorities. Van Bibber speaks of them as resembling trees on the 

 streets. This probably refers to the narrowing effect due to per- 

 spective. He also says, "These formations were given by Hum- 

 boldt the ill-suited name 'polar bands.'" Kaemtz says, "In 

 Germany these clouds are known upder the name of ' wind- 

 trees' {Windsbaiime) ." In a footnote Martius says, "The 

 tendency which the cirri have to arrange themselves in parallel 

 bands is remarkable ; and it proves that the cause which directs 

 their filaments to one azimuth rather than another, instead of 

 being merely local and accidental, extends to great distances. By 

 a well-known law of perspective, parallel bands ought to appear 

 diverging from one point of the horizon, and converging at the 

 point of the horizon diametrically opposite. The phenomenon 

 occurs more frequently in Lapland than in the temperate zone. 

 Humboldt found that at the equator the bands were generally 

 directed from north to south. The cause, which thus arranges 

 the great axes of these clouds according to parallel lines, is still 

 unknown. Forster was the first who made the very just remark 

 that these clouds almost always travel along a parallel to their great 

 axis, which greatly contributes to render them apparently motion- 

 less. Many meteorologists (Howard, Forster, Peltier) seem to be- 

 lieve that the cirri serve as conductors between two distant foci of 



electricity, of opposite names, which tend to combine, and that 

 the flexibility of the conducting clouds terminates in the rectilin- 

 ear form, which is necessitated by the condition of the shortest 

 patb from one focus to the other." Loomis says, "The direction 

 of the parallel bands generally coincides with that of the wind, and 

 it has been suspected that these lines of cloud serve as conductors 

 of currents of electricity, and this may be the agent which causes 

 the clouds to assume such artificial forms." A more guarded 

 statement than this it would be difficult to put forth. 



Abercromby of England has probably given more attention to 

 these motions than any one else. He speaks of the appearance as 

 being known as " Noah's Ark" in England. "Frequently we see 

 the curious spectacle of a long stripe of cloud moving either 

 broadside on or obliquely to its length. As we must suppose that 

 a stripe always sails with the wind in which it floats, we have to 

 find out how a stripe can be formed which moves across ita 

 length. At first sight, this is one of the most puzzling phases of 

 cloud-motion. These formations of clouds are, however, exactly 

 analogous to the smoke left by a steamer running before the 

 wind. If she I'uns faster than the wind, her smoke trails behind; 

 but if the wind blows faster than she steams, then the smoke is 

 blown forwards in front of her." He then shows that if the di- 

 rection of the steamer is not that of the wind, the line of smoke 

 will form an angle with the former. " Now, this is exactly what 

 happens in nature. The ascensional column of moist air, which 

 will eventually form a cumulus, starts from near the earth's sur- 

 face, drifting with the wind which blows there ; when it arrives . 

 at a certain height, it meets an upper current moving in a differ- 

 ent direction to that on the surface, and probably begins to con- 

 dense there. The stripe which would be formed under these 

 circumstances would behave exactly like the smoke of a steamer; 

 that is to say, it would lie obliquely to the wind which was driv- 

 ing it." Any one who is desirous of learning more of these views 

 and observations will find them in " Weather," pp. 84-91. 



I have made these quotations very freely from all the authori- 

 ties I have at hand, fourteen in aU, as it seems to me the subject 

 is of the highest importance, and has been very much neglected 

 up to the present. My own observations are as follows. In a 

 perfectly clear sky these clouds will come up from the south-west, 

 and move gradually to the north-east. When the stripes are over 

 head, a double motion is often very easily recognized. One of these 

 may be quite rapid, and I have often noticed that it coincided 

 with the north-west wind or at right angles to the stripe. From 

 observations on Mount Washington and of cirrus in Europe, this 

 velocity may be a hundred or even a hundred and fifty miles per 

 hour. At the same time, it is not a difficult matter to recognize 

 a second motion directly in the line of the stripe. This motion 

 may be a third or a fourth that of the other, and sometimes it is 

 very much slower. Observation indicates that this second motion 

 is often, if not always, in the direction of the storm which is then 

 near the station. If this can be incontestably established, it will 

 be seen what an extraordinary advance will be made in our 

 studies. We shall see, then, that this marked movement of the 

 upper current which first attracts our attention, and so often 

 masks the second motion, is, after all, the less important as relates 

 to the movement of the storm. The greatest interest centres 

 about the cause of this second motion. It is evident that these 

 stripes do not form conductors of electricity, because their motion 

 occurs in lines where there are no clouds. Is it not probable that 

 this current exists in the first place? During the last maximum 

 of sunspots, I observed very carefully an electric light playing in 

 cirrus stripes in my zenith, and mentioned the fact to others. I 

 have also observed a motion in auroral beams which was not so 

 very different from this second motion of cirrus stripes. The 

 suggestion made by Mr. Abercromby, that this second motion 

 takes its origin in a lower cloud, which keeps its direction after 

 rising to a higher level, cannot be accepted at all. Such a motion 

 as that would be very quickly brought to rest instead of being in 

 existence for a hundred miles or more. Moi'eover, the origin of 

 these beautiful and regular cirri cannot possibly be in irregular 

 masses of cumulus rising heterogeneously from alower to a higher 

 level. 



It seems to me that there are needed just now a careful series 



