termediate varieties. The acute observer will find much in them to
instruct and amuse him, and will probably be surprised to find how much
they have to do with his "first impressions" of others.

But I have a more important object in view. I propose to deal with "The
PHILOSOPHY _of the Weather_"--to examine the nature and operation of the
arrangements from which the phenomena result; to strip the subject, if
possible, of some of the complication and mystery in which traditionary
axioms and false theories continue to envelop it; to endeavor to grasp
_its principles_, and unfold them in a plain, concise, and systematic
manner, to the comprehension of "_the many_," who are equal partners with
the scientific in its practical, if not in its philosophic interest; and
to deduce a few general rules by which its changes may be understood, and,
ultimately, to a considerable extent, foreseen.

This is not an easy, perhaps not a prudent undertaking. Nor is my position
exactly that of a volunteer. A few words seem necessary, therefore, by way
of apology and explanation.

In the fall of 1853, in the evening of a fair autumnal day, I started for
Hartford, in the express train. Just above Meriden, an acquaintance
sitting beside me, who had been felicitating himself on the prospect of
fine weather for a journey to the north, called my attention to several
small patches of scud--clouds he called them--to the eastward of us,
between us and the full clear moon, which seemed to be enlarging and
traveling south--and asked what they meant.

"Ah!" said I, "they are scud, forming over the central and northern
portions of Connecticut, induced and attracted by the influence of a
storm which is passing from the westward to the eastward, over the
northern parts of New England, and are traveling toward it in a southerly
surface wind, which we have run into. They seem to go south, because we
are running north faster than they. You see them at the eastward because
they are forming successively as the storm and its influence passes in
that direction, and are most readily seen in the range of the moon; but
when we reach Hartford you will see them in every direction, more numerous
and dense, running north to underlie that storm."

I had seen such appearances too many times to be deceived. It was so. When
we arrived at Hartford they were visible in all directions, running to the
northward at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. In the space of forty