Mooreen Baker, age 13, Kahoka, MO., for her question:

What are clouds made of?

Everyone has tried to make imaginary pictures from fluffy, white summer clouds. But never do we find two that are exactly alike. What's more, every cloud is always busy changing its shape. It may also change from foamy white to pearly grey to glowering black. All the cloud types are changeable, and We would expect different clouds to be made from different materials. This is both true and untrue.

All clouds are made of moisture, so basically we can say that all clouds are made of the sable material. Moisture, of course, is water, and We know that water can take many different forms. Frozen water crusts the pond with solid, slippery ice. Liquid water runs through our faucets and fills our bathtubs. Boiling water turns to steam and vapor, and vapor is the gaseous form of water which blends with the other invisible gases of the air.

A cirrus cloud flying high in the sky like a curly, white feather is most likely made of small fragments of ice. This is moisture in the frozen or crystallized state. A dark, flat stratus cloud, glowering with threats, most likely teems with growing raindrops. A good part of its moisture is in the form of liquid water.

A fluffy, white cumulus cloud is made of mist. It is a foamy mixture of tiny droplets of liquid water floating in the air. Do not mistake these misty droplets for raindrops, though both are made of liquid water. The smallest raindrop is as big as a pinhead. About 50 droplets of a misty cloud could fit on the point of a pin. And. These tiny droplets are as widely separated from each other as are the p1anets of the solar system.

There is also a certain amount of vapor in every cloud. This invisible water gas may be in the process of turning into liquid droplets of mist, and the droplets may team up to form silvery raindrops. But in some clouds, the countless numbers of molecules of ice crystallize to form lacy, white snowflakes. All clouds then are made of moisture. They may contain gassy vapor and liquid droplets or icy fragments and unborn snowflakes  and some clouds contain a mixture of all these different forms of water.

A list of the ingredients might lead you to think that a cloud is a rather staid and stuffy object. And this is far, far from the truth. Some of its air is cool and some warm, some dry and some damp. These air masses conflict with each other, and a cloud is usually full. Of whirling breezes blowing up and down and in all directions.