THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 49 



back again from a state of visible vapor to invisible moisture. Its 

 outward form would be gone, and although we know that its 

 essence would still subsist, indeed, could never be destroyed, yet 

 its apparent existence would be ended. It would thus vanish like 

 many an infant at its very entrance into life, before accomplishing 

 any specific purpose of its being ; but, again, like the infant, it is 

 only the outward form which sustains annihilation. But heat is not 

 the only thing by which clouds are affected. Life is ever changing 

 with them as with mortals ; they are liable at any moment to be 

 whirled into the most fantastic shapes by every fickle wind that 

 passes. If the temperature of the atmosphere continues to lower, 

 the delicate gossamer-like vapor (beautifully compared by Lamartine 

 to the world's incense floating upwards to the Throne of God), will 

 resolve itself into large dark masses of rolling clouds, and the mass 

 of vapor, no longer able to poise itself in the air, descends to earth 

 in grateful refreshing showers, and perhaps in the bosom of the 

 cloud now passing overhead, are liquid treasures sucked up from 

 swamps of Florida, to go and shower fertility and wealth on the 

 plains of the far off West. Winter and summer " the clouds drop 

 fatness." But they have other offices to perform, besides those of 

 merely dispensing showers, of producing the rains, and of weaving 

 mantles of snow for the protection of our fields. They have other 

 commandments to fulfil, which, though less obvious, are not there- 

 fore the less benign in their influences or the less worthy of our 

 notice. They moderate the extremes of heat and of cold ; they 

 mitigate the climate. They spread themselves out, preventing 

 radiation from the earth and keeping it warm ; at another time they 

 interpose between it and the sun ; they screen it from his scorching 

 rays and protect the tender plants from his heat, the land from the 

 drought. Having performed this, they are evaporated and given up 

 to the sunbeam and the winds, to be borne on their wings, away to 

 other regions which stand in need of their offices. And here I would 

 say that I know of no subject more fit for profitable thought on the 

 part of the knowledge-seeking student, than that afforded by the 

 atmosphere. Of all parts of the physical machinery, of all the con- 

 trivances in the mechanism of the universe, the atmosphere with its 

 uses and adaptations appears to be the most wonderful, sublime and 

 beautiful. In its construction, the perfection of knowledge and 



