The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-09-01

A writer in Blackaooods Magasiae says:
The duties of clouds are to supply us
with water in all its summer and winter
forms-that is to say, with rain, sleet, snow,
hail, and fog and to preserve us from ex-
cesses of both heat and cold by shielding
us from the suns ray when the air is too
hot or by preventing the radiation of ter
restrial heat when it is too chilly. Child
rem would, no doubt, insist on adding that
an additional duty of clouds is to show lis
which way the wind blows. In order to
accomplish these different functions, clouds
adopt variety Of densities and shapes,
and place themselves at a variety ofheights;
but whatever be the altitude at which they
range, or the specific gravity or the form
which they may momentarily assume, they
are always at work at their vocation, and,
as long as they are required, are unceasing-
ly engaged in making weather. But all of
them do not disappear ill "cayerns OF rain;"
some of them fulfil other objects than
shower-making, and do not vanish in driz-
zles; what becomes of these others when
they are done with What is the fate, for
instance, of these tleecy, dreamy, high-bred
looking clouds which come and go in the
still holiness Of July, which softly appear
and as softly disappear in the silent sum-
mer sunlight2 To this, at all events, we
can give an answer those graceful "nur-
| sings of the sky" are dissolved back again
into vapor by heat; they remain water,
but they once more become water invisible.
Like everything else around them, it is not
in their power to cease to be; invisibility
is not mortality. Their story of unending
life is told in Shelley's Song Of the Cloud i;
their law is, 81 change, but cannot die"
OF these impcrishable clouds rain is the
first-born child it may be added that it
is, too, the favorite grandson of vapor.-
But notwithstanding its eminent position
in the family, it cannot be said to be alto
gether credit to its relations. Rain is
incontestably possessed of some remarkable
capacities It's talents are brilliant; its in
merits Of its qualities are lamentably di-
mnished by the capriciousness, and the
wilfuness, and the disorder with which it
employs them. Of course it hus the excuse
of having been abominablY brought up
like all its kindred, and of never having
had the advantage of good examples at
home, for neither weather, nor vapor, nor
clouds, set their younger relatives pattern
of steadncss, of dignity, or of regularity
of conduct. But whoever may be to blame,
the fact persists that the merits and defects
of rain are so intermingled, that it is some
times very difficult to distinguish them
from each other. Open handed generosity
and niggardly avarice; the gentlest and
tenderest caresses and the fiercest blast Of
temper; the most dashing and impetuous
public speaking and the driest and most
painful silence, are all mixed up together
in this richly endowed but wildly way.
ward nature.
And yet, with all its faults, rain does
render us more service than the clouds il
comes from, although its benefits often lose
half their value by coming ut the wrong
time. Its distribution is as unequal as thai
of wealth ; like money it bestows itself in
excess in one direction, and does not give
itself at all in another. 1t never rains in
Peru, in Northern Mexico, in the African
Sahara, in Central Arabia, or in the Desert
of Cobb; but in Patagonia it scarcely evel
leaves off raining. And in quantity it il
as Irregular as in locality one inch day
is heavy fall in England; but in thu
Highlands of Scotland three INCHES are no
unfrequent and at Gibraltar thirty, three
inches have fallen in twenty-six hours, L
rain-guages could he established out a
sea, in the region of the equatorial Atlantic
Gains, it is probable that the heaviest fal
would be proved to occur there; but a
pluviometry is, thus far, a process whicl
is only applicable on land, we are temper
arily obliged to accept the Khasia Hills
opposite the head of the Gulf of Bengal
as the seat of the most abundant aownpop
J that we know of, tor the rain Of each tWelv
months attains the prodigious depth O
forty four feet. The enormity OF this damp
ness may be appreciated by the fact TIA
d. even in the west of Ireland, where til
r. whole swing of Atlantic wet comes dow
eagerly on the first land it reaches, til
yearly fall, in the very moiatest period
never exceeds ten feet, while in France til
, average is thirty inches, and in Russia onl
= fourteen.
. As rain means vegetation, and no raj
means deserts, the results of these divers
ties glare out conspicuously; the existent
NJ of plants, and consequently of animal
- depends as much on water as on temper
pit rufe, so that the absence of rain necessari
. entails the absence of life. And here v
Is, leap, incidentally, into the very midst
VI an enormous questionable RELATIONSHIP
between history and weather. Powe