Abstract
IT is a commonplace to say that the phenomena that present themselves most frequently are also those that are least observed with accuracy and intelligence. The ever-changing aspect of our sky, and the screen of vapour covering that adds charm to landscape and variety to scenery, present numberless opportunities for study and critical examination, but they have long waited for adequate description and representation. It was not till the beginning of this century that any special nomenclature was invented to describe the alterations that take place from hour to hour, and the very slight additions that have been made to this special vocabulary since Luke Howard proposed the three well-known terms of description, show the neglect from which this department of meteorology has suffered. These terms, too, though they have become the common property of all nations, are limited to description, and suggest nothing of the physical causes that determine the appearances he so happily described. Indeed, meteorology in his day was not in a position to push the inquiry with hope of success, and it may even still be urged that the explanations offered to account for some of the recognised types of cloud formation are largely speculative. This neglect of a very charming study has been brought about, not only by the fact that clouds are of ordinary every-day occurrence, and therefore not worth noting, but students of practical meteorology have perhaps too much considered that barometer and thermometer readings are the one thing needful, and have looked to the preparation of a weather chart as a veritable sheet-anchor to maintain and support the position of the science, For hitherto the general character of cloud observation among even painstaking meteorologists has been lamentably insufficient. A rough personal estimate of the percentage of area covered by cloud is frequently all that is given, with very little reference to the distance from the zenith at which these clouds are seen, and consequently neglecting the effects of foreshortening. Altitude, density, direction of motion, character of formation have all been regarded as of small consequence, but it is to be hoped that an epoch of more useful and more exact observation is dawning and possibly we may run into the other extreme, now that attention is being called to the subject, and devote too much time to the consideration of these fleeting appearances, and accumulate more results than can be effectively studied.
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The Photographic Observation of Clouds. Nature 55, 322–325 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/055322b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/055322b0