152 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
again absorbed, and the air loaded with it is again trans- 
parent, as is all the air around, and as it was itself before 
passing over Table Mountain in its course. 
From Claremont, or Wynberg, or the Flats, or any place 
to the back of Table Mountain, it may be seen that the 
cloud is not blown to the mountain, but that there it first 
appears ; and if some few cloudlets, formed over the crests 
of hills belonging to the range situated to windward, be 
seen sailing towards it, it is evident that they are ‘A 
sailing, a sailing with the wind, and not attracted only, 
for none are seen floating toward the Table-Cloth in other 
direction than that in which the wind blows. 
Of this phenomenon Sir John Herschel writes, ‘ That 
the mere self-expansion of the ascending air is sufficient to 
cause precipitation of vapour, when abundant, is rendered 
matter of ocular demonstration in that very striking 
phenomenon so common at the Cape of Good Hope, where 
the south or south-easterly wind which sweeps over the 
Southern Ocean, impinging on the long range of rocks 
which terminate in the Table Mountain, is thrown up by 
them, makes a clean sweep over the flat table-land which 
forms the summit of that mountain (about 3,850 feet high), 
and thence plunges down with the violence of a cataract, 
clinging close to the mural precipices that form a kind of 
background to Capetown, which it fills with dust and 
uproar. A perfectly cloudless sky meanwhile prevails over 
the town, the sea, and the level country, but the mountain 
is covered with a dense white cloud, reaching to no great 
height above its summit, and quite level, which, though 
evidently swept along by the wind, and hurried furiously 
over the edge of the precipice, dissolves and completely 
disappears on a definite level, suggesting the idea (whence 
it derives its name) of a “Table-Cloth.” Occasionally, 
when the wind is very violent, a ripple is formed on the 
erial current, which, by a sort of rebound in the hollow of 
the amphitheatre in which Capetown stands, is again 
thrown up, just over the edge of the sea, vertically over 
the jetty—where we have stood for hours watching a 
