THE PAGEANT OF THE CLOUDS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVI, Issue 52, 10 December 1909, Page 2

THE PAGEANT OF THE CLOUDS.

Amid all the woiuiers'of Mature there is nothing more wonderful than clouds a wilier in I lie "fall .Mall Gazette',). Nothing so com 1110n, nothing .so simple: yet nothing so grand and profoundly mysterious. 1 here, in the open Heavens from long ere (lawn ol day till the shades ot night blot out tiii.' skies in their impenetrable veil, we have a ceaseless procession of inimitable giandeur; sometimes a solitary cloud Kiiating in Uie sea ol azure, adrilt, but siately in its lonely dignity, like the

.solitary rider who precedes the chariots of" a king. Or again the heavens are black with clouds, their rolling billons lying like a heavy, weight upon tho sultry air, yet lull of beauty, grace and power. To gain a favorable vantage ground for watching the genesis ol a el.md we must select some lolty height from which we can command a prospect of valleys and mountain peaks. It is one thing to behold the shaded underside ot these vast fields ol mist and quite another to see the sunlight .shining 011 their .snowy billows from aliove. From tho high altitude one may often see the clouds forming, as the temperature. of the air falls or cool winds steal in among the hills, where the atmosphere is laden with moisture and h.'ated by the midday Klin. I hare watched with strange delight 1 louds forming and gathering on the Siinplon Pass and among the higher Alps; at first slowly creeping along the mountain side, then spreading with inciedible rapidity and sweeping up the valley. Another moment and this cloud is upon us, damp and cold, and for an hour wo walk shrouded in mist. Tlmn it li.MW.ss, and as if recedes among tho hills its rolling folds work miracles of loveliness with the evening light- outwardly a-id afar oil' in tin* rays of the nun a thing of exquisite beauty, but within nil, 0110 needs distance and perspective to see sou'.e visions. Few people have j erer seen the Mat ierlun n absolutely free front clouds in the summer months. !'Hh- warmer air creeps elowlv up the j mountain side till if enters the colder regions of tlx* ice-clad summit and at ' once it hoconios cloud. Mountains are the fucinrms of clouds; h-eiv storms are l-r.'v.vi! 1 teni|n\st clouds ar<* forged 1 am! wMiti forth to cover ilw valleys ami • tlm IWkls.