letely solved, how it is that the clouds float, each
in its own place, at its own level; each perfectly "balanced" in the
thin air.

"That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley,
level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as
if through an inundation--why is _it_ so heavy? and why does
it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt
away utterly into splendour of morning, when the sun has shone
on it but a few moments more? Those colossal pyramids, huge
and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the
beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks--why are
_they_ so light--their bases high over our heads, high over
the heads of Alps? why will these melt away, not as the sun
rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight
clear, while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth like
a shroud?"[46:1]

The fact of the "balancing" has been brought home to us during the past
hundred years very vividly by the progress of aerial navigation.
Balloons are objects too familiar even to our children to cause them any
surprise, and every one knows how instantly a balloon, when in the
air, rises up higher if a few pounds of ballast are thrown out, or sinks
if a little of the gas is allowed to escape. We know of no balancing
more delicate than this, of a body floating in the air.

[Illustration: CIRRUS FROM SOUTH KENSINGTON, 1906, MAY 29.]

[Illustration: CUMULI FROM TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 1906, MAY 20.

(Photographs of clouds, taken by Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer.)

"Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds?"]

"The spreadings of the clouds," mentioned by Elihu are of the same
nature as their "balancings," but the expression is less remarkable. The
"spreading" is a thing manifest to all, but it required the mind both of
a poet and a man of science to appreciate that such spreading involved a
delicate poising of each cloud in its place.

The heavy rain which fell at the time of the Deluge is indeed spoken of
as if it were water let out of a reservoir by its floodgates,--"the
windows of heaven were opened;" but it seems to show some dulness on the
part of an objector to argue that this expression involves the idea of a
literal stone built reservoir with its sluices. Those who have actually
seen tropical rain in full violence will find the Scriptural phrase not
merely appropriate but almost inevitable. T