762 AANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
sometimes have their bases flattened is on account of the different temperatures 
of the several strata of air. The stratum immediately beneath the cloud being 
warmer than the one in which the cloud floats, has a greater capacity for absorb- 
ing watery vapor, hence this remains invisible and the form of the cloud in the 
stratum above is modified accordingly. 
*' Clouds floating low enough to cast shadows on the ground are usually 
followed by rain." Nonsense. All clouds of any magnitude or density cast 
shadows in the daytime and the most brainless originator of weather proverbs 
ought to know it. 
" One Saturday change of the moon is enough, as it is always followed by a 
severe storm." According to this whenever the moon changes on Saturday a 
large portion of the earth must be swept by severe storm, since the moon changes 
over a large part of the earth usually on the same day. This of course does not 
tally with the facts observed, — some portions of the earth never having severe 
storms at all, and when severe storms do occur they extend but a comparatively 
short distance. But I had not intended to speak of this class of proverbs, since 
no person of intelligence puts the least faith in such as refer to special days of the 
week or the year. 
" If rain commences after nine it will rain next day." From this we must 
assume that if it commence before nine it will not rain the next day. Suppose a 
storm moving east reaches Lawrence, Kansas, at eight, Kansas City at nine, and 
Independence, Mo., at ten, then by this proverb the track of this storm, east of 
Kansas City, must on the day following be drenched with rain, while the por- 
tion westward must "go dry," 
" Rays of sun appearing in a cloud forebode rain." With regard to this 
phenomenon, commonly called the "sun's drawing water" the author says, 
"This phenomenon is, in fact, caused by the image of the sun being reflected 
in an intervening cloud, the reflected image radiating in the cloud " This is all 
a mistake. As I stated in an article in the Review some two years ago, this 
phenomenon is caused when the sun shines through rifts in the clouds, — the light 
streaks being produced by light reflected from particles of vapor exposed to sunlight. 
The dark lines of course are the parts shaded by clouds. These lines are gener- 
ally seen when there is a background of dark clouds. Lines quite analogous to 
these are produced when sunlight enters a dark room through a slit in the blinds. 
The dust floating in the air takes the place of the watery vapor as the reflecting 
medium. Sometimes streaks of alternate light and dark sky are seen extending 
from the horizon at the point where the sun has just set, to the opposite point, 
and these are caused by clouds still below the horizon, their shadows giving rise 
to the dark lines, the light being produced by the sunlit portions. Since these 
shadows extend often frorn one hundred to two hundred miles, it shows that the 
clouds producing them must be large and sharply defined. Generally, the lines 
are produced by storm-clouds, hence their appearance may well be said to indi- 
cate an approaching storm. 
So much for weather proverbs. It is to be hoped that these old sayings 
