Drippings

“ The odor of smouldering heaps of burning brush and weeds, or of tardily burnt tobacco-plant beds, is all that as yet scents the breeze. But after a month of frost and rain and snow and clouds, the breath is the breath of spring, and the glow of the sun, now bursting through the clouds, seems no longer the sickly glare of winter. ”

“ As she went once more down the hollow of the moonflowers—not so dense now as then, and many withered by the heat of the sun and the month-long drought—she stopped again and again, overcome by the heat even of the dusk. ”

“ After sunset, when the sky is clear, you know that the grass gets wet with dew. In the morning you may see mists hanging over woods, and streams, and hills, and gradually melting away as the sun mounts in the sky. At all times of the year you may watch how clouds form and dissolve, and form again, ever changing their size and shape as they move through the air. Now these are all examples of the condensation of vapor. ”

“ The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered
Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send
Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops,
Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,
Wasteth and liquefies abundantly. ”

“ As the immense body of water leaps over this vast precipice, it breaks into a soft spray, which waves like a plume in the wind. At times, when the rays of the sun strike this spray, a rainbow is formed which stretches itself across the deep chasm, and produces a beautiful effect. ”

“ The seemingly harmless clouds that had overhung the mountains since morning had now accumulated in threatening masses, and rolled in huge gray vapors over all the heavens. A wet, penetrating mist overspread the earth, and a chill wind that smelt already of the rain blew drearily, now and then shaking down showers of condensed moisture from the faded trees. ”

“ For if the air be in a humid state, or you are exposed to exercise, the treacherous salt, which, when crystallised, has hidden itself in the fibres of the cloth, speedily melts, and you have all the tortures of being once more wrapped in moist drapery. ”

“ The glance finds no point to rest on—as on the edges of clouds—it is a mere opaque expanse. But the air is dry, the moisture does not deposit itself, it remains suspended, and waits but the wind to rise and depart. ”

“ By reason of the breaking of the water, and the wind which the falling water carries with it, there is constantly spray ascending like smoke, which scatters itself like rain. In this spray, when the sun shines, the figure of a rainbow is constantly to be seen trembling and shaking, and even appearing to move the rock. ”

“ These several things, the heat of the sun, the hot vapour from the earth surging upward like steam, the prickly bush and the frequent stumblings, engendered a violent thirst which they all began to feel, while the perspiration streaming from their bodies added more and more to its intensity. ”

“ A little way from the land, the wind catches the spray and carries it up and away. If the wind was now from the east, as it will be in spring, that spray would wash over us, and drench us to the skin in a minute. ”

“ Some of them are enveloped in blue smoke, which oozes through every interstice of the thatch, and spreads itself, like a cloud hovering over these frail habitations, or moves slowly along, like a strata of vapour not far from the ground, as though too heavy to ascend, and loses itself in the thin air, so inspiring to all who have courage to leave their beds and enjoy it. ”

“ You are wet through, your pants cling coldly and stiffly, like canvas, and all is misery. Home at night, and the wood is damp and burns badly, emitting volumes of stinging smoke, which an erratic breeze blows back in clouds into the main room—to hang about in clouds impossible to dissipate. Your "nap" is clammy and uninviting. Everything feels sticky, as if wet sugar had touched it, and your best boots get covered with a green moss. ”

“ This partial condensation is sometimes visible. When the sun shines clearly, at the east or west, through a small opening in the clouds, the condensing vapor is shown by the streaks of sunlight, just as the fine particles of dust are seen in a dark room, when a few rays of sunlight are admitted through a small aperture. This phenomenon is often observed, and it is said of it—“It’s a going to rain; the sun is drawing water.” ”

“ Even more beautiful and fairy-like, if possible, is the garment of frozen fog with which all external objects are adorned and etherealized when the spring advances and the temperature of the water is raised. ”

“ But if we breathe against a window pane, the scattered water in our breath is collected by the cold of the glass in a little cloud; and if we place the warm palms of our hands against this window pane, in the same way the cold collects the water that is passing from the little mouths in our skin, and shows it to us as a cloud on the glass. ”

“ Not a drop of rain has fallen for three months to refresh their dried-up leaves and thirsting roots, and now the sun beats down with a fiercer fire than ever, and draws up the drop of moisture which haply may linger low down in the cool earth. ”

“ Drying is a troublesome business, and it must be done in a room where there is a window or door to admit a draught, when necessary, as it sometimes is. But if you have only a small quantity the drying can be managed somehow. ”

“ For many days past it has been not only very hot in the sun, but a light hot air has brooded over everything. Not strong enough to be called a hot wind, it is yet like the quivering haze out of a furnace-mouth. ”

“ One of the great secrets in all drying operations is to have a constant current of fresh hot air playing on the goods to be dried, this absorbs the moisture they contain, and the water-charged air thus produced must be taken away as quickly as possible. ”

“ This dryness has its advantages: the walking is improved; the long heat has expressed all the spicy odors of the cedars and balsams, and the woods are filled with a soothing fragrance; the waters of the streams, though scant and clear, are cold as ice; the common forest chill is gone from the air. ”

“ In moist weather the cloud hangs long and lazily in the air; in dry weather it is rapidly licked up. What has become of it? It has been reconverted into true invisible vapor. The drier the air, and the hotter the air, the greater is the amount of cloud which can be thus dissolved in it. ”

“ At intervals, once or twice an hour, the wings of a lonely swallow pass that way, when alone the shower stirs from its perpendicular fall. Cool and moist, the perfumed air flows, without lifting the most nervous leaf or letting fall a suspended bead of the night’s rain from a honeysuckle bud. In an indefinite sky of grey, through which one ponderous cloud billows into sight and is lost again, no sun shines: yet there is light—I know not whence ”

“ The fog, which in the early morning hesitated whether to roll off and give us one of those beautiful, bright autumn days, the more precious because we feel they are gliding so rapidly from us, or to come down in rain, seems to have decided at last, and a dreary, drenching rain is the result. ”

“ Everything is saturated and dripping with moisture; the very air we breathed seemed a clammy, aromatic vapor. In these vast forests atmospheric changes are continuous and abrupt; drifting banks of gloomy clouds are followed by glaring sunshine, and then tempestuous showers—all in rapid succession. ”

“ It is more dashing, rippling, sparkling, living this windy but clear day, never smooth, but ever varying in its degree of motion and depth of blue, as the wind is more or less strong, rising and falling. ”

“ That this is so may be seen from the fact that misty vapours never arise from springs of water which are under cover, nor even from watery marshes which are underground; but in un­covered places which are open to the sky, when the rising sun begins to act upon the world with its heat, it brings out the vapour from damp and watery spots, and rolls it in masses up­wards. ”

“ Upon a pleasant day during summer, especially if the sun shines brightly, much aqueous vapour or mist is held suspended in the air, and if the temperature at sunset falls below the dew point, that vapour can no longer be retained in suspension in the air, and falls to the earth. ”

“ On leaving the upper surface of cloud, the dew point decreases more rapidly than the air, and at extremely high situations the difference between the two temperatures is wonderfully great, indicating an extraordinary degree of dryness, and an almost entire absence of water. ”

“ From this: dry air, when coming in contact with wet objects, absorbs the moisture, and by this dries the object somewhat. If there be no wind, the moistened air will remain around the wet object, and the drying goes on very slowly. But so soon as a little wind arises, the moist air is moved away, new dry air constantly takes its place, and coming into contact with the wet article, effects in a very short time the desired result. ”

“ I saw four manner of dryings: the first was bloodlessness; the second was pain following after; the third, hanging up in the air, as men hang a cloth to dry; the fourth, that the bodily Kind asked liquid and there was no manner of comfort ministered to Him in all His woe and distress. Ah! hard and grievous was his pain, but much more hard and grievous it was when the moisture failed and began to dry thus, shrivelling. ”

“ Also, if the quantity of surface remains the same, the time of drying will be proportioned to the quantity of matter; as the greater the quantity of matter under the same surface, the longer it will be in drying. ”

“ And when, further, this white night encompasses my melancholy eye with flying streams of vapor, with floating, fluttering particles of perfume-dust, then do I sadly see in the vapor human life pictured, with its two great clouds on our rising and setting, with its seemingly light space around us, and its blue opening over our heads.... ”

“ That heated air may be very moist, and yet the moisture so equally diffus'd and rarefied, as not to be visible, till colder air mixes with it, when it condenses, and becomes visible. Thus our breath, invisible in summer, becomes visible in winter. ”

“ Thus glass canes or canes of sealing-wax may be melted by a blow-pipe or a candle within a quarter of an inch of the fingers which hold them, without any inconvenient heat, while a pin or other metallic substance applyed to the flame of a candle so readily conducts the heat as immediately to burn the fingers. Hence clothes of silk keep the body warmer than clothes of linen of equal thickness, by confining the heat upon the body. And hence plains are so much warmer than the summits of mountains by the greater density of the air confining the acquired heat upon them. ”

“ When the drying is done in a dry atmosphere the surface quickly dries and hardens, and the moisture from the interior passes to the surface as vapour, the soluble salts being left distributed through the whole mass, and consequently no “scum” is produced. ”

“ The effect of submitting hides to these conditions is that the exterior surface becomes rapidly dry and, naturally, contracted, so that the air or heat cannot reach the interior, which retains moisture. ”

“ In the same way, when the atmospheric air feels the heat of the sun, it draws the moisture from all about, causes it to rise, and gathers it into clouds. For the earth gives out moisture under the influence of heat just as a man's heated body emits sweat. ”

“ The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud is vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness. ”

“ Who has not seen the window-panes of a heated room in cold weather bedewed with trickling moisture? The vapour of the room is in abundance, although invisible; but certain strata of the air thus charged come in contact with the cold panes, and lose a portion of their caloric, and with their caloric a portion of their vapour, (to which, perhaps, the respiration of a large party has contributed,) and this becomes condensed in the form of a visible fluid. ”

“ Each droplet forms a gathering place for more condensing water vapor, and therefore grows. When the droplets of water in a cloud are very close together, some may be jostled against one another by the wind. And when they touch each other, they stick together, forming a larger drop. ”

“ The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and the intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the springs and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the atmosphere. ”

“ As our dry air is surrounded on both sides by moist air, it is evident that we must more or less partake of both heat and cold; but it moreover accounts for the happy circumstance that we have much rain ”

“ The moist air fares like the wet clothes we spoke of; the warm dry air absorbs its particles of water. But if a colder stratum of air approaches the stratum containing clouds, then the water-particles of the latter are condensed; the cloud becomes small drops of water; these drops are too heavy to be supported in the air, and they fall down as rain. ”

“ When this wind blows pretty strongly, the leaves and covers of books sometimes curl, as if they had been placed near a fire; the seams of furniture, and of wooden vessels sometimes open considerably, and the skin of persons sometimes feels peculiarly dry and unpleasant, in consequence of the rapid evaporation of both the sensible and the insensible perspiration. ”

“ The sun's rays dry up the natural moisture of the human system, and accordingly water and vegetables largely partaken of in summer, give rise to an accumulation of wind in the system owing to their lightness, dryness, or expansive and drought-making properties. ”