MAGIC BEAUTIES OF CLOUDLAND

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 219, 4 June 1918, Page 6

MAGIC BEAUTIES OF CLOUDLAND

AS*SEEN BY AN AIR3,LVN

(By "Archneoptcryx," in 'the "ATfetminster Gazette.")

Do you know where the rainbow ends? I do, because I'vo been there. The , rainbow ends on the top of every clouii i opposite the sun. Sometimes when you're flying abovo the clouds you see the rainbow a complete and beautiinl circle, sometimes in two lovely circles, j ono outside the other, with the colours reversed and facing. The rainbows with most vivid hues are seen on the lower thick white clouds, but rainbows on the upper clouds appear far more wonderful because they have a vivid cross of fire super-imposed on' the circle of light. Wherever you go above the clouds a halo encircles the shadow of your machine. Ono seldom eeos the rainbow from the earth, but it is always in sight above. 1 have charged the rainbow like Don Quixote purging the windmill. It grows smaller and smaller as you approach, becomes n. ball of five, then you plunge into the cold, clammy mist of the clouds, and you're where the rainbow There are two principal kinds of clouds. The lower ones are formed of a dense mist, and when viewed from above appear solid fields of enow. When one hies through them they feel like a | cold November fog, and it is impossible to see where,one is flying. Sometimes one's machine emerges from these clouds covered with white snow. The upper clouds are thousands of feet above the lower strata. They are light,_ fleecy, I transparent clouds, formed of tiny particles of ice which bite and sting one's | face. When one flies through them one eees the lower clouds and the_ earth through a film which casts a mystic iridescence over the whole world. Sometimes in the summer little clouds sail across the landscape, and one dodges over and under them, happy as a skylark. Sometimes the clouds roll up in dense masses, covering the earth completely,' leaving ono in the silent loneliness of the great. Antarctic. Sometimes the clouds come In great threatening masses, with shafts of light and shadov slanting across the sky, and the air is full of wonder and mystery. Sometimes you skirt along the edges and over the saddles of the thunder-clouds great sparks form on the edges of our wings, aud you really become a part of the lightning. Sometimes the wind tosses and bumps your machine like a helpless piece of paper. The clouds are oiten formed of vast masses of vapour thousands of loot high, which appear as solid as snow mountains. One never realises the full immensity of space until one has threaded his tiny machine up the vast corridors of blue between the mighty walls of the icoberg clouds. Sometimes the vast white walls stretch abovo and below thousands of feet. Sometimes, when bowling over the surface of the clouds, your machine rolls over the edge'of a great precipice many thousands of feet deep, and you have all tho feeling of great height. So great is tho delusion of tho solidity of the clouds, one involuntarily shrinks back into the cockpit and 'holds tight. This is the only circumstance in which ono has a sense of height when flying. Under all other conditions the flying machine appears fixed, and tho earth, clouds, and sky are merely a great river which flows behind. The magic and beauty of England can only bo understood when viewed from the romance and mystery of the clouds. No other country has such colour in the air, such varied and mysterious forms and shapes of clouds,' such ceaseless change and multiform beauty. Tho mystery and wonder of the universe are always waiting for us to explore and are always open to our airmen. It may be dull November and a smoky city; wo climb into the machine and mount aloft, and in a few minutes we are under the bright sunshine and deep blue sky. The gloom of earth is replaced by pearly white clouds with their infinite variety of shape rimmed with the rainbow. The sky i« tho airman's native element, and its beauty and mystery are always open to him. Coleridge has described this very beautifully in the movoment of the stars, "That still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere tho blue sky belongs to them, and is their ap-

po'inted' rest and their native country, and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival."