To the meteorologist I hope the following pages may prove not only of some interest, but of practical value as a small step towards that greater exactness of language which is essential before we can attempt to explain all the details of cloud structure, or even interchange our ideas and observations with adequate precision. The varieties depicted and described have been selected from many hundreds, as those which seem to me to show such differences of form as to imply distinct differences in the conditions to which they are due. I have not attempted to deal with the physical causes of condensation except in a general way, being unwilling to introduce diagrams of isothermals and adiabatics and such purely scientific methods into a work also intended for a wider public. For those who wish to pursue this part of the subject I have appended a list of papers from the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society and other sources, which may serve as references. I also hope that some more votaries of the science may be induced to realize that meteorology does not consist solely of the tabulation of long columns of records, but includes subjects for investigation as much more beautiful as they are more difficult.

To the artist I trust they may also be of some use, by calling attention to the variety and exquisite beauty of the sky. Nothing is more extraordinary in art than the general negligence of cloud-forms. Many of them are quite as worthy of careful drawing as the leaves of a tree, the flowers of a field, the ripples on a stream, or the texture of a carpet, or a marble pavement. Yet it is the common rule to find pictures, which are otherwise marvellous examples of skill and care, disfigured by impossible skies with vague, shapeless clouds, as untrue to nature as it would be possible to make them. Grace of outline, delicacy of detail and texture, richness of contrast, beauty of form and light and colour, all are present in the skies, and combine to make a whole well worthy of the best that art can give. The illustrations I offer are not selected for pictorial effect; they are chosen from a purely scientific point of view; but they are enough to indicate what could be done if the facts of nature were treated with high artistic skill.

In addition to the meteorologist and the artist, there are a much larger number who follow neither profession, but who love Nature in all her moods; and to them also I hope these pages may be of interest. Indeed, if only a few of them should be stimulated to take up a branch of nature study which has given me many an hour of quiet enjoyment, the labour of bringing these notes together will not have been in vain.

ARTHUR W. CLAYDEN.

St. John’s,
Exeter.