Some indeed had not wholly lost their Motion: continuing still to be lifted up. Others ponderous and sleepy, nodded, by mere Weight, their monstrous Heads. It seemed as if they had persisted in mounting upwards, till they coud rise no higher: their lower Parts pressing perpendicularly against the upper, which gradually swelled them out on all Sides. By partial and temporary Movements of the Air, some broad unwieldy Caps lost the vertical Direction of their Columns. The Columns likewise underwent a similar and gradual Change: rolling from their Pedestals or spiral Bases; and, at Times, assuming every organized Shape that Fancy coud suggest.
Opinion of Philosophers.
53. The imperceptibly slow yet perpetual Changes they underwent, strongly called to Remembrance, the Opinion of the great Berkeley,[19] as well as of the ancient Philosophers, that AIR GIVES FORM TO THINGS: scarcely a Breath of which seemed, however, to disturb their general Order.
The Constitution of these enormous Masses was such as to reflect some of the Sun’s Rays, and to transmit others in a Variety of Colouring.
The Colours of the Thunder Clouds.
54. The Parts next the Sun were of a snowy Whiteness. Then of a bright luminous Yellow melting into a dusky Sulphur: afterwards of a Purple. The Rays being now shorn; a Degree of Opacity and Transmission took Place throu’ half the Substance of the Cloud, which seemed of a transparent Blue like the Onyx.
Delightful Tints visible only from the Balloon.
55. These delightful Tints must be ever eclipsed to a Spectator on the Surface of the Earth, looking upwards throu’ the gross Atmosphere that surrounds it; but highly interesting to one who is suspended in a ratified and unencumbered Medium of the etherial Regions, where the Eye darts without Resistance above Clouds, and all visible Vapour.
T. Baldwin Arm. delt. et pinxt.