MAKING CLOUDS AND RAIN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 1 May 1897, Page 554

MAKING CLOUDS AND RAIN.

If anybody would like to produee elouds and rain on a small scale it is easy to do so, according to Professor L. Errera, who describes the process in del et Terre. He advises that the experiment be made with a cylindrical vase of Bohemian glass about eight inches in height and five inches in diameter. It should be filled half full of strong alcohol, about 92 per cent, pure, covered with a porcelain saucer, and warmed in a hot-water bath. It must be warmed for quite a while, so that the liquid, vase and cover may attain a high temperature without bringing the alcohol to the boiling point. Then the whole should be removed to a wooden table, taking care nob bo agitate bhe fluid, and results may be awaited. The warm liquid will continue to send up an abundance of alcoholic vapours. In a few minutes the porcelain cover will be so far cooled that the vapour nearest to it will begin to condense, and thus very clearly visible elouds will be formed. Presently these clouds will begin tn resolve themselves into tiny droplets of rain, which will fall vertically into the liquid- There will be countless numbers of these raindrops, and the interesting spectacle may go on for a half hour. At first the vapours will rise quite up to the porcelain cover, but as the whole cools the condensation will occur at a lower level. Then there will be a perfectly clear zone above the cloud zoue, and nature will be exactly reproduced, except that in the place of water, everything is made of alcohol. The clear space above will represent the pure sky, below which are the clouds, condensing into rain, which is returned to the liquid, representing the ocean from which it came. Thus this experiment illustrates in miniature the whole aqueous circulation of the atmosphere.

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