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National Geographic : 1925 Aug
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TOILERS OF THE SKY elVtierert L. Ponting A HOOD OR CAP CLOUD TOPPING FUJIYAMA This is one of several special mountain clouds, the most striking of which is the true banner cloud. The latter forms in a stiff wind which blows moisture-laden air past the peak. As the moisture enters the windward margin of the cloud, it condenses and becomes visible; as it leaves the leeward edge, it again sinks into invisibility. The particles of cloud, therefore, are in rapid motion, but the form remains fixed. tends the greatest cloud and rain belt of the world. The next greatest gathering place and dumping ground of the clouds is in the western tropical portion of Brazil, where the Andes reach up and squeeze out the moisture into the tributaries of the world's greatest river, the Amazon. Only in two other places do the clouds crowd together and give down their mois ture in such measure as to be at all com parable to India and Brazil-on the southwestern coast of Africa's great bulge into the Atlantic and not far away under that continental eve where the coastline of Africa strikes southward again. Well outside the Tropics the greatest concentration of rainclouds in the world occurs in North America, along the south ern "kite tail" of Alaska, though far to the south a narrow strip of southern Chile has almost comparable conditions. On down into our northwestern States the cloud concentration extends in some what less degree. POWER POSSIBILITIES SIIOW CLOUD GENEROSITY Power possibilities clearly tell the story of the generosity of the clouds in this region. To visualize the extent of their contributions, one needs only to know that the State of Washington leads all other commonwealths in potential water power, and that nearly one-third the total 179
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