Today is a most important day in many different ways. It is, of course, inauguration day for our eighth President. It is also Armistice Day, the feast of St Martin of Tours and also St Menas, whose divinely delegated duties include responsibility for the finding of lost sheep.
But some may prefer to remember that today is the 225th anniversary of the birth of Luke Howard, originator of those strange and exotic names that meteorologists use to name their clouds - names like stratus, cumulus congestus and altocumulus lenticularis.
Luke Howard was a good deal more fortunate than most prospective meteorologists. Born into a prosperous London family on November 11th, 1772, he was apprenticed to a chemist at an early age and soon established himself in business at Temple Bar in London.
He prospered and, as time went by, he was able to devote more and more of his time to his interest in science and philosophy. Among his writings can be found essays on subjects as diverse as botany, Quakerism, electricity and swearing, and he even found time in 1827 to translate the Apocrypha of the Old Testament into English.
But much of his spare time was devoted to a life-long interest in the weather, and thus it was that he came to classify and name the clouds. He divided them into three main groups that he called cirrus, cu- mulus and stratus, giving a precise and definite meaning to each term. His use of Latin for the names had the advantage of making his system very adaptable in succeeding years for international use.
Before he died in 1864, Luke Howard had the satisfaction of seeing his suggestions widely accepted throughout the meteorological community. But he also received another somewhat unexpected accolade. The German poet Goethe was a keen observer of the atmosphere and, in 1822, hearing of Howard's work, he wrote to him for details.
The information he received, said Goethe, unlocked for him the mysteries of the skies - although some might say that he was inclined to overstate the case a little in his poem dedicated to Howard in gratitude for this enlightenment: But Howard gives us with his clear mind
The gain of lessons new to all mankind;
That which no hand can reach, no hand can clasp
He first has gained, first held with mental grasp.
Defined the doubtful, fix'd its limit-line,
And named it fitly - Be the honour thine!
As clouds ascend, are folded, scatter, fall,
Let the world think but of thee, who taught it all.