connection ivith the Climate of Berlin. 159 



steam is called a moist air, air mixed with condensed steam is termed 

 a cloudy atmosphere. Both may be distinguished from each other, 

 just as our breath in a warm room is distinguished from the clouds 

 which form before our mouths in winter, but which we do not ex- 

 hale as clouds. Water mixed with spirits of wine produces a trans- 

 parent mixture, because both are fluids. Air, however, mixed with 

 opaque solid or fluid bodies, produces an opaque mixture which becomes 

 more opaque in proportion as the mixture is more entire. Thus snow 

 may be formed out of comminuted ice; white sand out of pounded rock- 

 crystal ; foam, mist, vapour, or whatever we like to call it, out of water. 

 We look upon clouds habitually as on something really existing, as 

 a kind of magazine in which rain, snow, and hail, are stored up ; bodies 

 which, when they come into contact with one another, produce thun- 

 der; which are attracted by mountains and torn asunder by their 

 rocky teeth, when out of the breach thus formed water streams 

 forth ; and what is most remarkable of all, we think of these clouds as 

 floating with all their heavy contents in the air. If, however, we 

 only get amongst the clouds on the top of a mountain we find that 

 they consist of nothing but common mist, and that of all the magni- 

 ficence we had attributed to them not a trace remains. We might 

 have spared ourselves the trouble of ascending so high to discover 

 this, for a cloud is nothing more than a mist above, and a mist is 

 nothing more than a cloud below. Any one that has been accus- 

 tomed to think of a cloud as of something tangible and lasting, of 

 which he can take a photography ; or, if he has the talent for it, make 

 out in it resemblances to the forms of men and animals, must be 

 aware how often he is obliged to change his comparison. It may be 

 said, however, that we often see a cloud lying all day long on the top of 

 a mountain. Does not Mount Pilate take his name from the very 

 circumstance that he alway wears a cap % Is not the Table Moun- 

 tain at the Cape celebrated for it ? Who, however, that sees the white 

 foam lying on a clear mountain stream, looked down upon from a hill, 

 believes it to be anything lying on the ground ? And is the cloud lying 

 on the top of a mountain, anything more than this ? The stream is 

 the air, the stone on which the foam rests is the mountain, the foam 

 is the cloud. Does it not move continually if we ascend the moun- 

 tain in order to see if it really lies quietly upon it, as it seems to do 

 when we look up at it from below ? The appearance of stability is there- 

 fore nothing but a delusion, the cloud endures only whilst arising, 

 and in the act of vanishing. Do we find the plains of Lombardy 

 covered with the clouds which are attracted down from the St 

 Gothard in quick succession into the valley of Trevola ? No ! they 

 have entirely disappeared from the hot plains, and the cloudless 

 heaven above them forms a strange contrast to the thick covering 

 which, whenever we look back, conceals the Alps from our view. Do 

 we not often see a storm, which, with the intention of raining in 

 good earnest, comes down from the Charlotten Berg, entirely dissi- 



