re peculiar to our
own times; yet which have not hitherto received any special notice
or description from meteorologists.

So far as the existing evidence, I say, of former literature can be
interpreted, the storm-cloud--or more accurately plague-cloud, for
it is not always stormy--which I am about to describe to you, never
was seen but by now living, or _lately_ living eyes. It is not yet
twenty years that this--I may well call it, wonderful, cloud has
been, in its essence, recognizable. There is no description of it,
so far as I have read, by any ancient observer. Neither Homer nor
Virgil, neither Aristophanes nor Horace, acknowledge any such
clouds among those compelled by Jove. Chaucer has no word of them,
nor Dante;[1] Milton none, nor Thomson. In modern times, Scott,
Wordsworth and Byron are alike unconscious of them; and the most
observant and descriptive of scientific men, De Saussure, is
utterly silent concerning them. Taking up the traditions of air
from the year before Scott's death, I am able, by my own constant
and close observation, to certify you that in the forty following
years (1831 to 1871 approximately--for the phenomena in question
came on gradually)--no such clouds as these are, and are now often
for months without intermission, were ever seen in the skies of
England, France, or Italy.

In those old days, when weather was fine, it was luxuriously fine;
when it was bad--it was often abominably bad, but it had its fit of
temper and was done with it--it didn't sulk for three months
without letting you see the sun,--nor send you one cyclone inside
out, every Saturday afternoon, and another outside in, every Monday
morning.

In fine weather the sky was either blue or clear in its light; the
clouds, either white or golden, adding to, not abating, the luster
of the sky. In wet weather, there were two different species of
clouds,--those of beneficent rain, which for distinction's sake I
will call the non-electric rain-cloud, and those of storm, usually
charged highly with electricity. The beneficent rain-cloud was
indeed often extremely dull and gray for days together, but
gracious nevertheless, felt to be doing good, and often to be
delightful after drought; capable also of the most exquisite
coloring, under certain conditions;[2] and continually traversed in
clearing by the rainbow:--and, secondly, the storm-cloud, always
majestic, often dazzlingly beautiful, and felt also to be
beneficent in its o