Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/102

94 future into consideration they are hardly assignable to either of the two corresponding classes. As a whole they are anything but homogeneous, having come trooping here from divers quarters of perhaps three continents.

CLOUD-LAND IN FOLK-LORE AND IN SCIENCE.

THE last time I had the honour of addressing an audience in this hall it was for the purpose of explaining modern developments of cloud-knowledge from a meteorological point of view. To-night, I propose to cast a glance backwards, so as to bring to your notice the manner in which people in ancient times have looked at clouds, and the extraordinary influence which the imagery they saw in cloud-forms had on their mental development.

Two important facts connected with cloud-forms will greatly simplify our task. In the first place, cloud-forms are essentially the same all over the world, as I shall show you incidentally during this lecture; and, in the second place, though no two clouds are ever the same, any more than two faces, still, all varieties of combinations are essentially reducible to six or seven fundamental structures.

I think the best way will be to show you successively seven of the fundamental structures of clouds, chiefly by means of photographs taken by myself in various parts of the world. Then, when you see the cloud on the screen, you will readily realise how the forms have suggested ideas to savages, and how these ideas have grown into mythology. I will next remark on the survivals of that attitude of