Luke Howard’s *Essay on the Modification of Clouds* (1865) – The Public Domain Review

At first glance, the project of classifying the clouds may seem a bit uninspired, if it is useful. This does not apply to Luke Howard (1772–1864), industrial chemist by profession and amateur meteorologist by trade, whose profession in 1803 Essay on the change of clouds records the fruits of an ardent, lifelong devotion to skygazing. It was long thought that it was impossible to deduce clear types from the constantly changing sky. But based on the diaries he had kept since he was ten, Howard became the first to systematically name standard cloud formations. We still use the Latin names he chose today: cirrus (from the Latin word for a tuft of hair), cumulus (‘convex or conical piles’), stratus (a ‘horizontal sheet’) and nimbus (the rain cloud). The project not only represented a meteorological breakthrough, but produced sketchbooks full of wind-swept watercolors and inspired a new generation of landscape painters. Years later, Howard earned the surprising distinction of being mentioned in a poem by Goethe.