The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1888-07-26
How Storms Are Made.
From the Pail Mall Budget.

How Storms Are Made.
From the Pail Mall Budget
Our earth only receives a small
fractional part of the suns heat; but,
whatever that may be in the year,
more or less than the average, the
entire surface of our earth must feel
and be subject to the effects. And
one thing is certain namely, that a
year or series of years, of excessive
sunheat will inevitably be years and
seasons of excessive atmospheric dis
turbances, because increase of heat
will produce excess of heat will pro-
duce excess of evaporation, excess of
electric action, and, necessarily, ex-
cessive precipitation; and, during a
prevalence of this excess of sun-heat,
there must be over-limited areas vio-
lent storms both summer and winter.
When very large areas of the at
mosphere, have been, by excess of
the atmosphere, have been, by excess
of heat, brought into an unequal
state, as large areas of lower stratum
of highlyheated air and vapor, which
is also intensely electric, the condi-
tions to produce sandspouts, water
spouts, and tornadOes are fully ripe.
The upper and colder layer of the at
mosphere cannot cool the lower
highly-heated and vapor-laden
stratum so evenly and quickly as to
prevent vents in the form of tunnels
forming from the lower stratum to
the higher stratum, and causing a
rupture which takes place up
ward in a pipe form, just as
water in a tank or basin, having a
bottom means for discharge by a
pipe, flows out with whirling mo-
tiOn-in our northern hemisphere al
ways in the direction of the hands of
the clock, and so the heated, highly
electric and excessively vapor-laden
breaks into the cold atmosphere
above when at the level of the ''dew
point" invisible vapor becomes visi-
bic, parting with it's latent heat,
which so rarefies the air as to force
some of the condensed atmosphere
in visible cloud, mounting thousands
of feet above the condensing dew
point and into region above the
highest peaks of the highest noun
tain.
To feed this pipe, or, as in some
eases, pipes, the lower stratum flows
in from all sides to rotate and
ascend with the intense velocity
steam power, sufficient to produce
all the disastrous effects of the wild
est tornado, there being almost a
vacuum at the ground or water line,
as the phenomenon may be on the
land or over the sea. On the land
trees are twisted and uprooted,
houses are unroofed, solids of vari-
GUS kinds are lifted from the earth,
and human beings are blown away
like dead leaves. There are, also,
records of railway wagons having
been blown off the rails. In deserts
entire caravans have been buried be-
meath a mountain of blown
sand-camels, horses and men; while
in Egypt there are the ruins of cities
massive temples and monuments
deep buried in the adjoining desert
sand. At sea many a good ship
caught by a tornado has been over
whelmed and sent to the bottom
whole.
There are milder forms ofthe storm
effect, producing on warm summer
day the cumulus clouds. Here the
lower statum of warm air is also
flowing inward and rising upward
beneath each cloud, condensing at
the dew point, parting with latent
heat, producing modified steam pow
er, and so causing these summer
clouds to enlarge upward, bulge and
mount in sunshine like Illuminated
woolpack mountains, but when seen
in an evening western sky about sun
down they take fantastic forms, so
aptly described by Shakespeare.
Cloud scenery is the poets dream
land, and is by some writer's most
truthfully and beautifully described.
AS rule painters do not pay so
much attention to clouds as the
poets do. At all events, they do not
represent them so truthfully as the
poets describe them. There are, of
course, exceptions, but in the Royal
Academy Exhibition just opened
there are many square feet of canvas
painted on which the portion in
tended to mean sky and clouds bear
no resemblance to anything ever seen
in nature. Every painter should
study meteorology as Il surgeon
studies anatomy. Clouds have forms
as definite as a skeleton.
Clouds are not masses of unmean-
ing vapor, but form and float obedi-
ent to law; and, if the painter has not
studied and learned this law, he cam
not depict clouds in their true forms.
On a warm summers day small
cumulus clouds may be seen forming
at the dew-point line of elevation; in
each case the base of the cloud is
level at an ascertainable heighth
above the site, having an upward
current of warm, vapor-laden air ris-
ing beneath, mounting and bulging.
The Clever Ballet Girl.