DIE ERDE 139 2008 (1-2) Special Issue: Fog Research pp.

11-44

• History of Science – Hydrometeors – Fog – Rain – Dew

Detlev Möller (Cottbus)

On the History of the Scientific Exploration of Fog,

Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Zur Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erforschung von Nebel,
Tau, Regen und anderem Atmosphärenwasser

With 5 Figures and 3 Tables

Atmospheric water, today classified as hydrometeors (fog, cloud, precipitation) and depositions
(dew, frost etc.), has fascinated people since ancient times as ‘heavenly’ phenomena that were
early recognised to be part of the water cycle. However, these phenomena were not described in
detail before a first understanding of fundamental atmospheric physics and of the basic chemical
composition of the air had been acquired. This contribution will start with a short introduction of
the ancient philosophic view of the atmosphere and then proceed to several early modern ap-
proaches to understand water evaporation and droplet formation and to a first scientific descrip-
tion of the phenomena of dew, cloud and rain. Here, for the first time in modern scientific
literature, the early approaches to chemical-meteoric water analysis are presented.

1. Introduction to these “waters”, before Wells (1814) ascer-

1.1 The forms of atmospheric
water (terminology)
Atmospheric water includes physical water in all
aggregate states, i.e. gaseous, liquid (in droplet
form) and solid (ice particles). The historic term
‘atmospheric waters’ is ‘hydrometeors’ in cur-
rent terminology, i.e. meteoric water. For histor-
ic reasons, dew had been considered to belong
tained that dew did not result from water drops
which fell out of the sky. The phenomena – fog,
mist and clouds, precipitation (rain, snow, hail)
and dew – have been described since Antiquity.
A phenomenological understanding of the phys-
ical (but not chemical) processes associated with
hydrometeors was complete only by the end of
the 19 th century. Today the physics and the
chemistry in the aerosol-cloud-precipitation
chain are relatively well understood – also with
12 Detlev Möller
relation to climate. However, it seems that be-
cause of the huge complexity a mathematical
description of the processes (i.e. the parame-
terisation of the chemistry and also for climate
modeling) is still under construction.
Clouds and precipitation are not only the atmos-
pheric link in the global water cycle but also an
important reservoir for chemical processing and
the transportation of tracer substances. To be
sure, clouds are distant from the earth’s surface
(with the exception of fog!) and thus not simple
to study – even nowadays. Precipitation (rain,
snow and hail), in contrast, has always been eas-
ier to observe by human sensors (through see-
ing, feeling, smelling and tasting) and to collect
for volume estimation and analysis. Precipitation
was probably long considered a climatic precon-
dition for survival by early humans, but also –
with its extreme events – as catastrophic, for
housing as well as for farming. In addition, the
mixing of air and water with pollutants (accu-
(meteors) denoted all celestial phenom-
rately related to as “foreign bodies” in the old
terminology) has been known since Aristotle;
the role of precipitation in cleaning the envi-
 and Latin
ronment is wonderfully described by Evelyn
(1661: 20): “It is this horrid Smoake which ob-
scures our Churches and makes our Palaces
look old, which fouls our Clothes and corrupts
the Waters, so as the very Rain, and refresh-
ing Dew which fall in the several Seasons, pre-
cipitate this impure vapour, which, with its
black and tenacious quality, spots and con-
taminates whatever is exposed to it”.
Atmospheric waters were first studied alchemi-
cally, by rain water distillation in the 17th century
(see section 5). But systematic studies of de-
position (precipitation chemistry) only began
with Liebig’s discovery that plants assimilate
(chemically fixed) nitrogen dissolved in rain.
Humans dealt with and were fascinated by the
properties of our atmosphere already in the an-
tique era. The term atmosphere, however, derived
DIE ERDE
from Greek  (= vapour) and  
(= sphere), was not regularly used before the be-
ginning of the 19th century. Willebrord Snelius,
also called Willebrord van Roijen Snell (1580-
1626), a Dutch astronomer and mathematician,
translated the term “damphooghde” (in German
“Dunsthöhe” or “Dunstkugel”) into Latin
“atmosphaera” in 1608; Guericke used “aerea
sphaera” (Lufthülle). In old German publications
the term “Dunstkreis” also was used instead of
“Atmosphäre”; in addition, in the 19th century the
term “air ocean” (Luftmeer, Luftozean) was also
used, in analogy to the sea.
In ancient times atmospheric (weather) observa-
tions were closely associated with astronomy,
and everything above the Earth’s surface was
named ‘heaven’ or ‘aether’. Already before the
year 600 BC, the Greek word ‘metéron’ (or
‘metéora’) was already in use. It means “a thing
in the air”. Until the end of the 18th century,

ena, aqueous, vaporous, solid and light.
The word ‘air’ is derived from Greek
aer. It is not known what the root of the German
word “Luft” is (the term Lufft was already used in
the Middle Ages); Möller (2006) discusses the
possible relation with “Licht” (light).
The gaseous substances, which were observed
in alchemical experiments, were named fumes
(“Dünste”), vapours (“Dämpfe”) and airs
(“Lüfte”); atmospheric air (called common air)
was still regarded as a uniform chemical body.
The meaning of different terms in different lan-
guages (e.g. French, English and German) has
been changing over time; the words were used
in a slightly different sense by various natural-
ists. For example, German Dunst (plural Dünste)
was first used in the sense of exhalations (in
modern term: emissions) and later as a synonym
for vapour – to be more exact: for visible vapour,
i.e. very small water droplets, now named haze
(a word which was not used before the 19th cen-
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
tury). In English, the term steam is used (only)
for water at boiling temperature diffusing in the
atmosphere; in French and German there is no
equivalent term, only in a combination like “water
vapour” (see Crosland 1962 for details).
Nowadays the terms air and atmosphere are
widely used as synonyms. English dictionaries
define atmosphere as “the mixture of gases sur-
rounding the Earth and other planets” or “the
whole mass of an aeriform fluid surrounding the
Earth”. From a chemical point of view it is possi-
ble to say that air is the substrate with which
the atmosphere is filled, in analogy to the hydro-
sphere where water is the substrate or sub-
stance. Furthermore, air is an atmospheric sus-
pension containing different gaseous, liquid
(water droplets) and solid (dust particles) sub-
stances. Thus “air chemistry” is a more adequate
term than “atmospheric chemistry”.
1.2 The atmosphere in research history
In ancient times, the motivation to observe the
atmosphere was clearly the driving force which
increased the understanding of Nature. Thus,
the first to describe a number of weather phe-
nomena and the water cycle was Aristotle in his
“Meteorologica”. Roman Emperors were not in-
terested in the continuation of Greek doctrines,
they, however, kept them. After the end of An-
tiquity, around the 5th century, the occident for-
got the ancient scientific heritage and replaced
it by one single doctrine, the bible. Especially in
the Middle Ages, when religious belief prevailed
with the view that all “heavenly” things were
governed by God (which, after all, was the be-
lief of peoples all over the world and which led
to the idea of the creation of the existence of
special gods for many atmospheric phenomena),
probably monks were the first to observe the
weather and take records, only by personal in-
terest though. In those days any meteorologi-
cal (i.e., weather) observation was linked to as-
13
trology. The idea that the motion of the stars and
planets influenced all processes on Earth and in
the atmosphere inhibited any progress of natu-
ral sciences. Only in the orient Aristotle’s doc-
trine remained vital and first came to Europe in
the 12th century, probably via Sicily where fa-
mous alchemistic laboratories were established.
Between the great times of the Greek philoso-
phers who recognised the atmosphere only by
visual observations and reflection, generalising
it in philosophic terms, and the first instrumental
observations, there is a gap of almost 1500 years.
Agricultural aspects and the understanding of
plant growth (i.e., the beginning of commercial
interests) initiated chemical research in the 17th
century. Chemistry, first established as a scien-
tific discipline at around 1650 by Robert Boyle
(1627-1691), had been a non-scientific discipline
(alchemy) by then. Alchemy never employed a
systematic approach and because of its “secrets”
no public communication existed which would
have been essential for scientific progress. In
contrast, physics, established as a scientific dis-
cipline a long time ago, made progress, especial-
ly with regard to mechanics, thanks to the im-
proved manufacturing of instruments in the 16th
century. Astronomers, observing the object of
their discipline through the atmosphere, also
began to discover the Earth’s atmosphere. There
are two personalities to whom deep respect must
be addressed for initiating the scientific revolu-
tion in both the physical and chemical under-
standing of atmospheric water: Isaac Newton
(1643-1727), who founded the principles of clas-
sical mechanics in his ‘Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica’ (1687), and, one hundred
years later, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743-
1794), with his revolutionary treatment of chem-
istry (1789) which made it possible to develop
tools to analyse matter; this is why he is called
“the father of modern chemistry”.
With the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century
the interest in natural processes generally expand-
14 Detlev Möller
ed. Travellers and biologists were interested in
describing the climate and its relation to culture
and biota, and in the late 1700s chemists began
to understand the transformation between solid,
liquid and gaseous matter. A fundamental inter-
est in biological processes, such as plant growth,
nutrition, animal breathing among others, stim-
ulated the study of the water cycle, the gas ex-
change between plant and air (including the find-
ing of fixed air, CO2, by Joseph Black in 1754),
the mineral input from the air by Liebig (1843),
and a first understanding of matter cycles by
early agricultural chemists (e.g. Knop 1868). With
the vehement industrial development in the mid-
dle of the 19th century, air pollution as a new at-
mospheric aspect became the object of interest
of researchers; more exactly, air pollutant im-
pacts (forest decline, human health, corrosion)
were the first foci of research. Already in the late
19th century, some impacts could be related to
individual air pollutants (cause-receptor relation-
ship, e.g. Stöckhardt 1871). The techniques to
measure trace species, however, were still very
limited. In spite of the fact that quantitative rela-
tionships were missing, legislative acts concern-
ing air pollution were passed in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, air pollution remained a local prob-
lem until the 1960s. Then, with acid rain (despite
the fact that it had already been described in
England in 1852 by Smith) the first regional en-
vironmental problem appeared in Europe. And it
was only in the 1980s that global problems were
recognised in relation with climate change due
to the global change of the air’s chemical com-
position. Localised catastrophic environmental
events like the smog events in Los Angeles
(1944) and London (1952) helped to initiate at-
mospheric chemistry as a new discipline since
the beginning of the 1950s.
We can learn from history that all kinds of per-
sons were interested in the subject from a philo-
sophical perspective and/or with respect to the
application of techniques (engineering) but also
motivated always by the specific problems (e.g.,
DIE ERDE
pollution) of their era. We also hold deep respect
for our scientific ancestors for their brilliant con-
clusions, based on scientific experiments with
very simple techniques and limited quantitative
measurements (to readers interested in more de-
tails of these aspects I suggest Middleton 1965,
Schneider-Carius 1955 and Gilbert 1907). With
respect to the chemistry of hydrometeors (or in
general to air chemistry), however, a historical
overview is still missing in the literature.
2. Water and Air as Elements: from Antiquity
to the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
2.1 Ancient concepts of the elements
Before the 6th century BC air was identified as
emptiness. Greek natural philosophers assigned
air and water to the four elements (materia pri-
ma: primary matter). Thales of Milet (624-546
BC) was the first who tried to answer the ques-
tion of how the universe could possibly be con-
ceived as made not simply “by gods and dae-
mons”. He defined water as a primary matter
and regarded the Earth as a disc within the end-
less sea. Pythagoras (about 540-500 BC) was
probably the first to suggest the Earth be a
sphere, but without explanation (only based on
aesthetic considerations). Parmenides of Elea
(about 540-480 BC), however, explained the
spheroid Earth due to his observations of ships
floating on the sea; he was a scholar of Xeno-
phanes from Kolophon (about 570-480 BC), the
founder of eleatic philosophy. Xenophanes
again was a scholar of Anaximander from Mi-
let (about 611-546 BC). With Anaximander, a
scholar of Thales, and Anaximenes (from Mi-
let, about 585-528 BC), the cycle of pre-Socratic
philosophers is closed. Anaximenes assumed –
in contrast to Thales – air to be a primary ele-
ment (root or primordial matter) which can
change its form according to density: diluted
into fire, it may condense to wind and, by fur-
ther condensation, into water and finally into
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
soil and rocks. This was very likely the first
“poetic” description of the idea that all material
on Earth is subject to cycling, where “dilution”
and “condensation” are the driving processes.
Empedocles of Acragas (495-435 BC) introduced
the four elements earth, water, air and fire, the
list was then extended by Aristotle (384-322 BC)
by a fifth one, the aether (explaining the heav-
15
cloud is thrust up into the upper atmosphere which
is colder, because the reflection of the sun’s rays
from the earth ceases there, and upon its arrival there
the water freezes. They [Anaxagoras] think this ex-
plains why hailstorms are more common in summer
and in warm countries.”
The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras of Klazome-
nai (500-428 BC) came to Athens as a young
enly, in Greek 
 ). Aristotle asked in his man, more than 100 years before Aristotle. Ques-
Meteorologica: “Since water is generated from
air, and air from water, why are clouds not formed
in the upper air?” He explained as follows (Aris-
toteles 1923: I, 9, 346b/26): “But when the heat
which was raising it leaves it, in part dispersing
to the higher region, in part quenched through
rising so far into the upper air, then the vapour
cools because its heat is gone and because the
place is cold, and condenses again and turns
from air into water. And after the water has formed
it falls down again to the earth. The exhalation
of water is vapour: air condensing into water is
cloud. Mist is what is left over when a cloud
condenses into water, and is therefore rather a
sign of fine weather than of rain; for mist might
be called a barren cloud. So we get a circular
process that follows the course of the sun …
From the latter [clouds] there fall three bodies
condensed by cold, namely rain, snow, hail …
When the water falls in small drops it is called
a drizzle; when the drops are larger it is rain …
When this [vapour] cools and descends at
night it is called dew and hoar-frost.”
From his Meteorologica we know that Aristo-
tle believed that weather phenomena were
caused by mutual interaction of the four ele-
ments (fire, air, water, earth), and the four prime
contraries: hot, cold, dry and moist. Aristotle
frequently argued against ideas which were
actually closer to the truth than his own (An-
thes et al. 1975). E.g., he presented the views
of Anaxagoras considering the cause of hail
as follows (Aristoteles 1952: 81): “Some think
that the cause and origin of hail is this: The
tioned on what he was born for he answered:
“To observe sun, moon and heaven” (Diogenes
1921). His philosophy is based on the Eleats and
Empedocles. With his doctrine that meteorolog-
ical phenomena were caused by sun activities
he was in contradiction to the generally prevail-
ing opinion. Anaxagoras’ theory is amazingly
correct but Aristotle wrote (Aristoteles 1923: I,
12, 348a/14): “… this is just opposite to what
Anaxagoras says it is. He says that this hap-
pens when the cloud has risen into the cold air,
whereas we say that this happens when the
cloud has descended into the warm air …”.
Aristotle, in contrast to this error, however, con-
tributed many accurate explanations of atmos-
pheric phenomena. The description of the wa-
ter cycle (reasons for rain), as presented above,
could have been taken from a modern textbook.
Archimedes of Syracuse, Sicily (287-212 BC) in-
directly contributed with his buoyancy princi-
ple to the design of the hot-air balloon, an in-
vention which added much to our knowledge of
the vertical structure of the atmosphere in the
19th and the beginning of the 20th century, and
to the basis for theoretical investigation of the
buoyant rise of cumulus clouds. Theophrastus
(about 372-287 BC), the successor of Aristotle
in the Peripatetic school, a native of Eresus in
Lesbos, compiled a book on weather forecast-
ing, called the “Book of Signs”. His work con-
sisted of ways to predict the weather by observ-
ing various weather-related indicators, such as
the halo around the moon, the appearance of
which is often followed by rain.
16 Detlev Möller
2.2 From the Middle Ages to the
Age of Enlightenment
All “philosophies” of the Middle Ages were based
on ancient philosophers, new observations and
conclusions were not added – in contrast, due to
the predominance of non-scientific approaches
(“alchemy”) there was no progress. For example,
Albertus Magnus, the most prominent German phi-
losopher and theologian of the Middle Ages (1193-
1280), wrote four books titled “Meteorum” fully
identical with Aristotle’s books. Although weath-
er records had been taken at different locations as
early as the 14th century, meteorology did not be-
come a genuine natural science until the invention
of weather instruments; after Hellmann this is
called the 2nd period in the history of meteorology.
Aristotle’s theory survived 2000 years: dew as a
deposition from the air, despite the contradiction
with his observation that “both dew and hoar-frost
are found when the sky is clear and there is no
wind” (Aristoteles 1923: I, 12, 348b/1).
Water remained one of the four “elements”, i.e.,
indivisible bodies, and the idea prevailed that one
element could be converted into another. All sub-
stances and materials in nature were considered
different mixtures of these four elements. As a
consequence of this belief, all substances were
transmutable into all others and were contained
in each of them. Each element had two qualities:
earth: cold and dry; water: cold and wet; fire: hot
and dry; air: hot and wet. In his posthumous “Or-
tus medicinae i. e. initia physicae inaudita” (1652)
Johann Baptist (Jan) van Helmont (1577-1644)
put forward the idea that all substances, except
air, were derived from water.
The observation that remote water (materia prima)
only comes from the atmosphere (atmospheric
water) certainly promoted the experiments to get
the philosopher’s stone from it. Despite much
progress at the beginning of the 17th century, the
belief of convertibility between air and water, and
water and soil (and vice versa) was widely accept-
DIE ERDE
ed – until the chemical composition of the air and
the structure of water was discovered by Caven-
dish, Scheele, Priestley, Lavoisier and others af-
ter 1770. We should not forget that solely the
estimation of volume and mass has been the fun-
dament of the basic understanding of chemical re-
actions and physical principles since Boyle. While
instruments to determine mass (resp. weight) and
volume had been known for thousands of years,
the new instruments (thermometer, barometer) to
supply us with the necessary data to test the
physical laws were only available to scientists
since Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Around the
year 1600, Galileo established an apparatus to
determine the weight of the air and invented a
crude thermometer..Without contact to Galilei the
thermometer was invented in Holland by Cor-
nelius Jacobszoon Drebbel (1572-1633) and first
used in 1612 by the physician Santorio (1561-
1636), called Sanctorius of Padua (Hellmann
1920). The Italian mathematician and physicist
Evangilista Torricelli (1608-1647), a student of
Galilei, produced a vacuum for the first time and
discovered the principle of the barometer in 1643.
Torricelli also proposed an experiment to show
that atmospheric pressure determines the level of
a liquid (he used mercury). Torricelli’s scholar
Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703) finally conducted
this experiment successfully and Blaise Pascal
(1623-1662), a contemporary French scientist, car-
ried out very careful measurements of the air pres-
sure on Puy-de-Dôme near Clermont in France. He
noticed the decrease of pressure with altitude and
concluded that there must be a vacuum in high
altitudes. In 1667 Robert Hook (1635-1703), an
assistant of Boyle’s, invented an anemometer for
measuring wind speed. In 1714 Gabriel Daniel
Fahrenheit (1686-1736), a German glassblower and
physicist, born in Danzig and later working in Hol-
land, worked on the boiling and freezing of water,
and from this work he developed a temperature
scale. Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799),
a Swiss geologist and meteorologist, invented the
hair hygrometer for measuring relative humidity in
1780. According to Umlauft (1891) Grand Duke
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Ferdinand II of Toscana (who reigned 1621-1670)
invented the first hygrometer (Torricelli was his
court mathematician). Benedetto Castelli (1578-
1643), a friend of Galilei’s, used the first rain gauge
in 1639 to measure the rain depth.
It is not known which is the oldest meteorolog-
ical instrument, likely the wind fane (700 BC in
Babylon). The poet Terentius Barro (185-159
BC) used it on his estate. But it was not until
Ignacio Denti combined several wind vanes
with a wind rose in Bologna and Florence in the
1570s to show exactly the incoming wind direc-
tion. A rain gauge was first used in 400 BC in
India, and independently in Palestine (ca. 100
AD), and with a network in Korea (1442) for ag-
ricultural purposes (Hellmann 1920). The first
commercially produced self-registering pluvio-
meter (Latin pluvia = rain) was introduced by
Christopher Wren (1632-1723) in London in 1663.
It is very likely that the first physical treatment
of rainwater was performed by the great Arab
scientist Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini who worked
in Merv (former Persia, now Turkmenistan) be-
tween 1215 and 1230 and who was a student of
(Abû‘r-Raihân Muhammad ibn Ahmad) al-Bîrûnî
(937-1048) who first introduced the weighing of
stones and liquids to determine their specific weight
(Durant 1950, Hall 1973). Al-Khazini is known for
his book “Kitab Mizan al-Hikma” (The book of
the Balance of Wisdom), completed in 1121, which
has remained a central piece of Muslim physics
ever since. Al-Khazini was the first to propose the
hypothesis that the gravity of bodies varies de-
pending on their distances from the centre of the
earth and he defined the specific weight of numer-
ous substances and also that of rainwater to be
exactly 1.0 g cm-3 (Szabadváry 1966).
3. Water as a Chemical Compound
The debate about who was the actual discoverer
of the chemical composition of water (H2O) was
17
called ‘water controversy’ in 19th century. With re-
spect to the discovery of the chemical composition
of water, three scientists must be regarded as candi-
dates (Kopp 1869): Cavendish, who was probably
the first (in 1781) to carry out experiments to form
water by combining phlogiston and dephlogisticat-
ed air (O2), also called good, pure, vital, fire air (in
German: gute Luft, Dephlogiston, Lebensluft, reine
Luft, Feuerluft etc.); Watt, who formulated the com-
position of water in 1783 in a similar way to Caven-
dish; and finally Lavoisier, who, in 1783, made the
first public announcement that water consisted of
inflammable air (H2) and dephlogisticated air (O2).
Nowadays it is hard to understand what phlogis-
ton meant. The phlogiston theory, founded by
Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682) and devel-
oped further by Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) –
both of them German chemists –, was to some ex-
tent derived from the old belief that there was a fire
element and that all combustible bodies contained
a common principle (element), phlogiston (which
in Greek means “flammable” or “inflammable”),
which is released in the process of combustion.
Substances rich in phlogiston, such as wood, burn
almost completely; metals, which are low in phlo-
giston, burn less well. The phlogiston theory cre-
ated great confusion and essentially empeded the
understanding of the chemistry of phase-transfer
processes and solid-gas reactions. Chemists spent
much of the 18th century evaluating Stahl’s theory
before it was finally proved to be false by Antoine
Lavoisier. When reading these old papers with our
present scientific knowledge it is often difficult, if
not impossible, to understand what the scientists
meant by different terms; confusion also results
from attributing the same term to different
substances (we may only conclude that in those
days such distinguishing was not always possible):
phlogisticated air for both N2 and H2, acid air (Sauer-
luft in German) for both CO2 and O2. Kopp (1869)
accepted that phlogiston was actually hydrogen.
Scheele (1777) found evidence that one unit by
volume of oxygen produces one unit of carbon
dioxide and defined that “Feuerluft (O2) = Phlo-
18 Detlev Möller
giston + fixe Luft (CO2 )” which was wrong and
should have be written (in the old terms) as: car-
bon = fixed air (CO2) + phlogiston”, i.e., when
carbon is burnt, it is transformed into carbonic
acid (CO2) while releasing “phlogiston”.
Hydrogen (H2) was probably already known to Pa-
racelsus and Helmont (without using the name) in
the 16th century but was often confused with other
combustible gases. Hydrogen was produced by the
treatment of metals with acids, but any “flammable
air” was called “sulphurous”. Stahl maintained that
phlogiston is exhausted by metals and combines
with the acid to a flammable substance. Cavendish
(1766), however, was able to show that the flamma-
ble air produced by the dissolution of iron in sul-
phuric acid and of zinc in hydrochloric (muriatic) acid
was phlogiston itself and did not contain anything
of acid. Today we know that this gas is hydrogen,
however, at that time, other flammable gases (pro-
duced for example when organic matter is decom-
posed: CO, PH3) were hardly distinguished. Caven-
dish was the first to study this flammable air (H2) in
different mixtures with common air to investigate its
explosion (1766). Priestley (1775) found that this
flammable air (H2) exploded much more vehemently
when brought together with the newly discovered
pure dephlogisticated air (O2) than with common air.
Cavendish (1784: 123) observed that after the explo-
sion the inside of the glass vessel became dewy (“…
that common air deposits its moisture by phlogisti-
cation”). In explosions in which Cavendish (1784:
130) used electric sparks he found “… liquor in the
globe …; it consisted of water united to a small quan-
tity of nitrous acid”. This statement is most remark-
able, it forms the first evidence of HNO3 formation
under atmospheric conditions by lightning. Sir
Charles Blagden (1748-1820), English physicist and
Cavendish’s assistant from 1782 to 1789 reported to
Lavoisier about Cavendish’s experiments in 1781
and, together with Pierre-Simon (Marquis) de
Laplace (1749-1827), the great French mathematician,
he repeated Cavendish’s experiments. He was able
to invert the experiment, i.e. he decomposed water
(by directing water vapour over a red-hot iron wire)
DIE ERDE
into hydrogen and oxygen. Lavoisier (1790) estimat-
ed the composition of 100 g water as 85 g oxygen
and 15 g inflammable gas (hydrogen), which is rela-
tively close to the correct quantities: 89 + 11.
Water chemistry, however, deals with the compo-
sition of natural water (or common water, to dis-
tinguish it from atmospheric water). In addition,
water chemistry (now often also termed aquatic
chemistry) also studies chemical reactions in wa-
ter and aqueous solutions (e.g. Stumm 1990; Sigg
and Stumm 1996; Stumm and Morgan 1996). Thus,
it is obvious to speak of rain, snow, fog, cloud or
dew chemistry in the sense of analysing the chem-
ical composition of the solution. This is the task of
analytical chemistry as a subdiscipline of chemis-
try which has the broad mission of understanding
the composition of all matter. Much of early chem-
istry was analytical chemistry since the questions
of which elements and chemicals are present in the
world around us and what are their fundamental
nature is very much in the realm of analytical chem-
istry. Before 1800, the German term “Scheidekunst”
(“separation craft”) was used in place of “analyti-
cal chemistry”; in Dutch, chemistry is still general-
ly called “scheikunde”. Before developing rea-
gents to identify substances by specific reactions,
only knowledge about the features of the chemi-
cals (odour, colour, crystalline structure etc.) was
used to “identify” substances (cf. Fig. 5). With
Lavoisier’s modern terminology of substances
(1790) and his mass conversation law, chemists
obtained the basis for chemical analysis (and syn-
thesis). Carl Remigius Fresenius (1818-1897) wrote
the first textbook on analytical chemistry (1846)
which is still generally valid.
4. Physics of Atmospheric Waters
(Hydrometeors)
4.1 Milestones of discovery
This section deals with the milestones in the step-
wise approach to explain the formation of clouds
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
and rain from the beginning of the 17th until the
end of the 19th century. First it should be noted
that a scientific understanding of phase-transfer
processes (smelting, boiling, condensing and
freezing) was not achieved before the middle of
the 19th century (with the development of thermo-
dynamics). Black, Watt, de Saussure, Deluc and
other great scientists contributed to the under-
standing of the nature of water vapour, for which
different terms were in use. From the early 17th
century onwards a distinction was made between
vapours (aqueous and humid particles) and ex-
halations (solid and or liquid particles but not
aqueous or humid). The ancient element “fire” was
used in the sense of heat until the end of the 18th
century (Deluc 1787). Thus, vapour was first con-
sidered as “little bubbles of water filled with fire”.
Later this was defined as fog and cloud (particles,
vesicles etc.) and “visible vapour”. In 1806, Wil-
helm August Lampadius (1772-1842), professor of
chemistry in Freiberg (Saxony) still wrote (1806:
118): “Das atmosphärische freye Feuer verbindet
sich mit dem Wasser zu einem eigenen elastischen
Fluidum, dem Wasserdampf; das Feuer ist fortlei-
tendes Fluidum; das Wasser wägbare Substanz
[Atmospheric free fire combines with water to a
specific elastic fluid, water vapour; fire is the off-
conducting fluid; water a ponderable substance]”.
The milestones are summarised as follows:
– Statement by Descartes (1637) that atmos-
pheric water is not air,
– First artificial cloud/fog formation, “bubble
theory” (vesicles) by Guericke (1672),
– Cloud described as a water suspension by
Le Roy (1751),
– First direct observation of (walking in) clouds
by de Saussure (1783),
– First physical theory (no water dissolution
in air) by Deluc (1787),
19
– First cloud classification by Lamarck (1802)
and Howard (1803),
– Water condenses only on particles by Aitken
(1881),
– Final evidence that clouds consist of droplets
and not vesicles by Aßmann (1885).
4.2 The 17th century:
Descartes and Guericke
Recall that air and water were regarded as “ele-
ments” convertible into each other since Aristo-
tle. The statement that water vapour is not (atmos-
pheric) air by René Descartes (1596-1650), also
known as Renatus Cartesius, the French philoso-
pher, mathematician, scientist and writer, is remark-
able as this was 15 years before the introduction
of the term “gas” by van Helmont. There was
obviously a need for a new word to name and dis-
tinguish the laboratory airs (i.e. gaseous sub-
stances) from atmospheric (common) air. This was
proposed by van Helmont: “hunc spiritum, incog-
nitum hactenus, novo nomine Gas voco [I call this
entity which hitherto has been unknown by the
new name of “gas”] (Helmont 1652).
With his book “Discours de la méthode pour bien
conduire sa raison et chercher la vérité dans les
sciences. Plus la dioptrique. Les Meteores. Et la
Géometrie. Qui sont des essais de cette méthode”
Descartes (1637) presented a nature philosophy
to explain “the entire physics”. His approach is
fully empirical and based on careful observation.
He explains the nature of clouds by vapours ris-
ing from the sea (“exhalaisons & des vapours”),
their distribution (through the formation of winds)
and finally their “contraction” into clouds and
fogs (nuës & de la brouille). As fog he defines
the “vapours” near the earth’s surface.
The same explanation was used by Ludwig Frie-
drich Kämtz (1801-1867, Kämtz 1940), professor
20 Detlev Möller
of physics in Halle (Germany), and by Flamma-
rion. Flammarion (1873) wrote: “When it [con-
densation] occurs at the level of the soil, it is
termed mist. But there is no essential difference
between a cloud and mist.” Nowadays we call
mist a thin fog near the ground; even thinner mist
is called ‘haze’ (atmospheric moisture or dust or
smoke that causes reduced visibility).
Descartes wrote that “expanding vapours pro-
duce wind and contracting vapours produce
clouds”. It seems remarkable that Descartes also
used the terms water droplet (goutte d’eau; in
Latin: gutta = drop, guttula = droplet) and ice
particles (parcelles de glace). He argued that
the water droplets must be perfectly ball-
shaped (rondes) and that they are small other-
wise they would fall down as rain or snow. In
addition, he wrote that high-altitude clouds
never consist of water droplets but of ice parti-
cles. Rain is formed when many water droplets
coalesce after collision (“… se touchent et elles
s’assemblent”). Principally, Descartes remained
within the philosophy of Aristotle, i.e. retained
the idea of the transformation of water into air
and vice versa. Descartes defined three ele-
ments (éléments) or particles (parties), those
from fire (very fine), earth (coarse) and air (fine),
corresponding to the heat, solid and liquid/gas-
eous state of matter. He used the term matter
(matière) as a general term and for him the par-
ticles are divisible in an unlimited way. To me it
appears that he was the first to clearly describe
the phenomenology of the mixed-phase cloud
processes and to state that clouds contain ice
particles also in the summer.
Some 20 years after the publication of Les
Météores, between 1650 and 1662, Otto von Gue-
ricke (1602-1686), mayor of Magdeburg, invent-
ed the air pump and worked on his famous ex-
periments concerning the physics of the air. In
addition, he studied the formation of clouds. In
his famous book “Experimenta nova (ut vocan-
tur) Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio” (1672), pub-
DIE ERDE
lished more than 10 years after the experiments,
he stated in the first chapter of the third book
(De aere ejusque origine, natura & qualitatibus
[on the air, its origin, nature and properties],
Guericke 1672a: 71, translated from the German
edition, Guericke 1672b, see also Guericke
1972c): “The air, according to our idea, can be
divided into steps or regions. Each kind of cloud,
heavier or lighter, keeps to its own particular one
of these regions, in which its weight matches that
of the air. But if the air was compressed every-
where it would be equally heavy above and be-
low, so that clouds could not be formed in dif-
ferent ways in different regions; but as in water
things either sink to the bottom or float, so the
clouds would either descend to the earth, or go
up to the highest part of the air … Air is not an
elemental substance (non est elementum) … Air
is nothing else then damping (exspiratio) or smell
(odor) or effluence of waters, earth and other
substances … Air and smell once generated from
water or other things and will never be trans-
formed back to water but remains air.”
Guericke also produced clouds (nubes) and fog
(nebula) by expansion of air from one flask into
another one which had been evacuated; he
wrote (in the eleventh chapter on p. 88) the fol-
lowing phrase which seems to me the first sci-
entific statement that cloud particles are bub-
bles or vesicles (not droplets; in Latin vesica =
vesica and vesicula = vesicle): “Quod tantò
magis apparet, quantò magis vitrum interne hu-
miditatibus refertum est; tunc enim plures ac
copiosiores exurgunt bullulæ, ita ut (…) nebu-
lam constituant; quæ per intromissionem ali-
quid aëris … tunc nebula illa in nubes dis-
pergitur. [This effect appears so much clearer
the higher the humidity in the glass flask is;
then numerous and larger bubbles producing
fog are formed. By running a little bit of air into
the glass … the fog dissipates into clouds].”
While later scientists argued that the water par-
ticles may only exist in clouds when they
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
“swim”, the “bubble theory” was almost ac-
cepted. However, even when the bubbles (or
vesicles) are filled with common air, the cloud
vesicles must be heavier than the medium in
which they swim (Kämtz 1840). It was not until
the end of the 19th century that the long debate
whether cloud particles are droplets or vesi-
cles, started by Descartes and Guericke, was
ended by Aßmann’s microscopic observations.
4.3 Concepts of the 18 th century
Charles Le Roy (1726-1779), French professor
for medicine in Montpellier and Paris, used the
term “solution” to describe fog and clouds
(1771). He mentioned the experiment in which ice
is placed in a dry glass, which soon becomes
covered with very small drops of water. The tem-
perature, which we now call dew point, is called
“le degré de saturation de l’air” by Le Roy.
Dew, he said, forms everywhere in the atmos-
phere near the ground. And, he pointed out that
“dry air” on a summer day can contain more
water than very “moist air” in winter.
Jean-André Deluc (1727-1817), Swiss natural
scientist, was the first to observe clouds dur-
ing his many walks in the Alps. In his famous
book “Idées sur la météorologie” (1786) he de-
scribed the reasons for evaporation and the
formation of “aqueous vapours”; he called hy-
drometeors “gutterable water” (translated into
“wässerigte Dünste”, “Wasserdünste” and
“tropfbares Wasser” in the German edition). He
concluded that the atmospheric water vapour
is identical with that from boiling water. This
correct conclusion (i.e. phase transition), based
on a friendly contact with James Watt (1736-
1819), replaced the former hypothesis that wa-
ter vapour was formed by the “dissolution of
water in air”. He was the first to correctly de-
scribe the “water-fire” relationship in the sense
that vapour is a composition of water and heat
or dissolution of water into vapour.
21
The German naturalist Christian Gottlieb
Kratzenstein (1723-1795), known for his stud-
ies of electricity impacts on humans, first meas-
ured the size of cloud droplets by comparing
them with a hair, in 1744 or even before (Kratzen-
stein 1744); arguing that the thickness of a hair
is 1/300 inch, he obtained a size of 0.00028 inch,
very similar to the later estimate by Horace Béné-
dict de Saussure (1740-1799), another Swiss
natural scientist (mainly geologist), who pub-
lished the book “Essais sur l’hygrométrie”
(1783). The latter constructed and used the first
hair hygrometer which consists of a hair free of
grease fixed to the frame at the top and to a
weight at the bottom. However, he did not know
that the measurement result represented only the
relative humidity. De Saussure tried to estimate
the size of cloud droplets with a magnifier which
resulted in between 0.00022 and 0.00036 inch;
assuming Prussian “Zoll” for inch, i.e. 2 3/5 cm,
the size corresponds to 8 μm which comes very
close to a mean cloud droplet we measure to-
day. De Saussure distinguished between four
types of “vapours” (vapeurs): the “pure elastic
vapour” (vapeur élastique pure) just after the
evaporation of water, the “dissolved elastic va-
pour” (vapeur élastique dissoute), the water va-
pour proper, and finally two types of condensed
water, first the “vapour vesicles” (vapeur vé-
siculaire), which he describes as very fine par-
ticles (mist in modern terms), and finally “solid
vapour” (vapeur concrète), likely a step in form-
ing precipitation (he wrote: “When finally the
elastic vapours or vesicles condense to small
solid droplets …” ). French concret means
(chemically) ‘solid’, as opposed to ‘fluid’. It is
hard to understand what de Saussure means by
“solid droplets” – perhaps frozen water, i.e. ice
particles? Or could it mean haze in the sense of
condensation nuclei? Clouds and fog (clouds
at the Earth’s surface) consist of many such
vesicles (he walked and observed droplets by
magnifier). Saussure, however, remained an ad-
herent of the “dissolution theory” (transforma-
tion of water into air).
22 Detlev Möller
The understanding of cloud formation at the end
of the 18th century can be described by the fol-
lowing scheme:
Water (as body: bulk) ї Vapour (steam;
invisible) їHaze (only the German Dunst
was used; visible) ї (Fog and) Cloud
(ўice particles) ї Rain or snow or hail
(by cloud particle collision)
Deluc characterised vapour as “fine water par-
ticles” (in modern terms: molecules), Dunst
(haze) as coarser water particles, likely identi-
cal with Saussure’s “vapeur concrète” (in mod-
ern terms: haze particles, i.e. atmospheric mois-
ture or dust or smoke that causes reduced vis-
ibility; Russell (1895: 232) presents the first ex-
planation of haze as a scientific term: “This haze
may be taken to be caused by the aggregated
nuclei of dust left after evaporation of the wa-
ter which condensed upon them”).
4.4 Atmospheric water in the 19th century
Deluc’s theory was the most advanced in Geh-
ler’s “Physikalisches Wörterbuch” (1825-45).
Kämtz (1840) discusses the reason why cloud
drops remain suspended in the air, even if they
are heavier than air (he still adhered to the vesi-
cle theory, but inside the air and not in other –
lighter – gases), and concluded that this was by
ascending air. In spite of a rapid development of
meteorology to a scientific discipline at the be-
ginning of the 19th century (Humboldt, Brandes,
Dove) it was not before 1870 that new fundamen-
tal insights into cloud formation were gained.
Paul-Jean Coulier (1824-1890), a French pharma-
cist, and John Aitken (1839-1919), a Scottish phys-
icist and meteorologist working in England, con-
ducted the first elementary experiments and ob-
servations on the role of fine airborne particles in
vapour condensation processes. Coulier pub-
DIE ERDE
lished his results in 1875 and Aitken published his
in 1880. They conducted almost identical experi-
ments, obtained very similar results and provid-
ed similar explanations: Vapours condense on solid
airborne nuclei. Nevertheless, Coulier had diffi-
culty explaining some of his later results by the
“condensation nuclei hypothesis”; he thought
that this hypothesis was not generally valid.
Aitken only noticed Coulier’s paper in 1881. He
repeated some of Coulier’s experiments and was
then able to explain all of his and Coulier’s results
by means of the “condensation nuclei hypothe-
sis”, which he considered as generally valid. This
work led to the continuing study of heterogene-
ous nucleation and the development of conden-
sation nuclei counters. Aitken built the first ap-
paratus to measure the number of dust and fog
particles in the atmosphere. One of his experi-
ments, conducted with a self-designed apparatus,
provided the first evidence of new particle forma-
tion in the atmosphere. As early as 1874 (but only
published in 1880), Aitken had concluded that
when water vapour condenses in the atmosphere,
it must condense on some solid particle; without
the presence of dust or other aerosol particles in
the air, there would be no formation of fog, clouds
or rain. Despite the fact that others had arrived at
this conclusion even earlier (see below), Aitken
is one of the founders of aerosol science; today,
his name has been given to the smallest atmos-
pheric aerosol particles (“Aitken nuclei”). Aitken
had no doubt that the nuclei were from two class-
es of particulates, sea-salt and the products of
combustion (remarkably, evidence for sea-salt in
the sub-μm range in cloud condensation nuclei,
CCN, was only found 100 years later).
The last question to be answered correctly in the
19th century was to resolve the problem “vesicle
theory versus droplet theory”. Augustus Volney
Waller (1816-1870), a British physiologist, was
the first after de Saussure to directly observe
cloud droplets and concluded (by optic pheno-
mena) that they consisted of drops and not ves-
icles (Waller 1847). Forty years later Adolph
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Richard Aßmann (1845-1918), German meteo-
rologist, known for his aspiration psychrometer
and founder of aerology, first director (1905-
1914) of the Royal Prussian Aeronautic Observ-
atory at Lindenberg (Brandenburg), observed
cloud droplets on Mount Brocken in November
1884 at different levels within the cloud, using
the best microscope available at that time
(Aßmann 1885). He also concluded that after
evaporation of the droplets he was unable to see
any residuals and therefore the CCN had to be
smaller than 1 µm. The most astonishing circum-
stances about the vesicle theory are the fact that
there was almost a complete absence of a theo-
ry of their formation and the fact that established
scientists like Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779-1848)
and Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (1822-1888)
supported the vesicle existence.
5. The Chemistry of Atmospheric Water
(Hydrometeors)
5.1 Early observations and
the era of alchemy
The observation that substances other than wa-
ter (so-called foreign bodies) were connected with
precipitation was known since Aristotle. Differ-
ent colours and odours had been described, most-
ly in connection with fog and mist. Showers of
blood, earth, sulphur, plants, frogs and various
kinds of animals as well as coloured snow can be
found in the literature (first in Homer). These
phenomena, connected with blooms, parts of in-
sects, pollen and dust, were first identified by the
French naturalist Nicolas Claude Fabri de Pei-
resc (1580-1637) and later by René-Antoine Fer-
chault de Réaumur (1683-1757). The Danish Ole
Worm (1588-1655), also called Olaus Wormius,
reported that on 16th May 1646 there was a heavy
shower in Copenhagen that contained dust ex-
actly like sulphur. Simon Pauli the younger (1603-
1680), a German physician living in Denmark,
states that on 19th May 1665 a storm in Norway
23
brought dust which was so much like sulphur that,
when thrown into fire, it produced the same smell,
and that, when mixed with spirits of turpentine, it
produced a liquor with an odour just like that of
balm of sulphur; of course the close neighbour-
hood to Iceland’s volcanoes is sufficient to explain
this occurrence (reported here after Flammarion
1874). In any case, these texts suggest that the per-
sons must have collected rain water for “chemical
consideration” (remember that rain collection for
estimation of the rainfall amount had been imple-
mented hundreds of years before). The matter (for-
eign bodies) was either regarded as suspended in
the atmosphere in a state of mixture or as elements
“which pervade the atmosphere in a state of solu-
tion” (Prout 1834: 347). The nature of the parti-
cles was found to be of vegetable origin or from
meteoric stones or aerolites, from volcanoes and
soils, but meteorites too.
Most probably the first rain water samplings (es-
pecially after lightning) for “chemical” treatment
(probably distillation) were carried out by alche-
mist members of the Rosicrucians (Rosencreut-
zer) in their quest to find the “philosopher’s
stone” (Kopp 1886). Since Aristotle it was known
that dew only appeared in calm and serene nights.
Dew which had fallen from the clear sky was re-
garded as matter from the sun or even from stars.
Thus, alchemists treasured dew because they
believed it to be sideric and a potential source of
the philosopher’s stone.
Christian Ludwig Gersten (1701-1762), a German
professor of mathematics in Gießen, was the first
to find out, based on observations, that dew did
not fall from the heavens but ascends from earth,
especially from plants (Gersten 1733). Charles
François de Cisternay du Fay (1698-1739), a
French chemist (known for finding two kinds of
electricity), wrote: “Glass and porcelain collected
much dew, while polished metal surfaces collect-
ed almost none” (du Fay 1736). Also in 1736,
Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692-1761), a Dutch
scientist in Leiden, reported on dew observations
24 Detlev Möller DIE ERDE

Fig. 1a Plate 4 from Mutus liber (1677). It shows an alchemist and his wife wringing out a cloth and
collecting (atmospheric) water in a bowl. In the background there are five clothes stretched
among four stakes. It is likely that dew is collected here despite the fact that similar collectors
were used later for rain water sampling but with a bowl below (!) the cloths. / Platte 4 aus
Mutus liber (1677). Ein Alchemist wird mit seiner Frau gezeigt, welche ein Tuch auswringen
und dabei (atmosphärisches) Wasser in einem Kolben sammeln. Im Hintergrund sind fünf auf
jeweils vier Pflöcke gespannte Tücher zu sehen. Wahrscheinlich wurde Tau gesammelt, obwohl
später ähnliche Sammeleinrichtungen für das Sammeln von Regenwasser genutzt wurden,
wobei aber ein Gefäß unter dem Tuch angeordnet wurde.
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water 25

Fig. 1b Plate 9 from Mutus liber (1677). This figure is similar to Plate 4 (Fig. 1a) in the sense of showing (different)
collectors and the sampling procedure. In Plate No 9 (identical with No 12) we see the couple filling water from
the sampling bowl into a flask. Rain is seen in the background. The wife passes the flask to Hermes who will
bring it to the laboratory (?). Because (almost very similar) figures with such “samplers” were found in many
alchemistic books, we may assume that rain water had been sampled long before but nothing is known on
chemical treatment because of the secrets in that field. / Platte 9 aus Mutus liber (1677). Das Bild ähnelt der
Platte 4 (Fig. 1a) bezüglich des Zeigens von (unterschiedlichen) Sammelvorrichtungen und der Probenahmeart.
Auf Platte 9 (identisch mit Nr. 12) sehen wir das Paar beim Abfüllen von Wasser aus dem Sammelgefäß in einen
Kolben. Regen ist im Hintergrund symbolisch zu sehen. Die Frau übergibt Hermes den Kolben – der ihn wohl
in das Laboratorium bringt (?). Obwohl (zumeist völlig identische) Bilder dieser Art in vielen alchemistischen
Büchern gefunden werden, dürfen wir annehmen, dass Regenwasser schon lange vorher gesammelt wurde;
allerdings ist wegen der Geheimhaltung nichts über dessen chemische Behandlung bekannt.
26 Detlev Möller
at Utrecht and confessed that “he did not un-
derstand why dew collects on some surfaces far
more than on others”. He carried out many dew
collection experiments and stored a sample 24
years in a flask without changes. Musschen-
broek’s “Elementa Physica” (1726) played an
important part in the transmission of Isaac New-
ton’s ideas on physics to Europe.
Le Roy carried out dew experiments in 1751 in
Paris, and Michael Hube (1737-1807), Polish roy-
al secretary in Warsaw, considered dew with re-
gard to the dissolution theory. Hube (1790),
Deluc (1787) and later Lampadius (1793) faught
against this theory. Lampadius was probably the
first to state that the temperature difference be-
tween the earth and the air layer above was im-
portant for dew formation (quoted after Gehler).
Rain and dew were considered as “materia pri-
ma” (or “remota”). The Rosicrucians also
called themselves “Frères de la Rosée Cuite”
(i.e. brethren of the boiled dew), the Latin word
ros (in French rosée) meaning dew (Waite 1887).
Hence, alchemists attributed high importance to
the dew. The sampling of dew and rain (for that
purpose) is illustrated by beautiful figures in the
“Silent Book” (“Mutus liber”) in 1677 (Fig. 1a,
1b), better known as Chemica Curiosa (1702). It
is certain that the alchemists collected dew; the
same samplers were used in the 19th century
(Fig. 2). The plate which follows in Mutus Liber
(not shown here) shows a couple in the labora-
tory distilling the water collected and sampling
the remaining “dew salt” with a spoon. It is like-
ly that the alchemists found nitre (nitrate) in dew
because Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693-
1755) wrote (Mosheim 1726): “Dew, the most
powerful dissolvent of gold which is to be
found among natural and non-corrosive sub-
stances, is nothing else but light coagulated and
digested in its own vessel during a suitable
period, it is the true menstruum of the Red
Dragon, i.e. of gold, the true matter of the Phi-
losophers” (quoted after Waite 1887: 6).
DIE ERDE
Nitrate (and nitrite) has been found in dew only re-
cently, in quantities much higher than expected only
from dry deposition. Acker et al. (2007) systemati-
cally studied the formation of nitric and nitrous acid
in dew and explain it by heterogeneous formation
due to the reaction of NO2 with water surfaces (Ack-
er and Möller 2007). There is another remarkable
phrase, showing us the reaction between sea salt
and dew (i.e. NaCl + HNO3, see Möller and Acker
2007): Johann Heinrich Pott (1691-1777; 1746),
German pharmacist and chemist in Berlin, quoted
his compatriot Johann Heinrich Cohausen (1665-
1750), physician in Münster, who utilised van Hel-
mont’s belief that volatile salts (salts that had an
odour or that decomposed readily when heated)
constituted the vital spirit or the breath of both
animals and plants: “Dem Meersalz von den Küsten
Hispaniens entzog er allen Geschmack, indem er es
während wenigstens 40 Tagen im feinsten Tau-
Geist digerierte und putrefizierte; daraus erhielt er
ein völlig neues Salz … von leicht bitterem Ge-
schmack und von einiger Ähnlichkeit mit der ni-
trosen Natur … (He deprived the sea salt of the
coasts of Hispania of all its taste [i.e. that of com-
mon salt by escaping HCl] by digesting it and pu-
rifying it for at least 40 days with finest spirit of dew
[probably HNO3 from dew salt] and found an en-
tire new salt … of slightly bitter taste which showed
some resemblance to nitrous nature…[i.e.
NaNO3])” (Pott 1753: 229).
True alchemists never published their findings in
books; their secrets were passed on from the mas-
ter to the student. Most authors of alchemist trea-
tises are simply writers, who often were also
known for novels. Nevertheless, we must assume
that these persons had contact to alchemists work-
ing in laboratories. E.g., Savinien Cyrano de
Bergerac (1619-1655), actually Hercule Savinien
de Cyrano de Bergerac, a writer in Paris, de-
scribed in his novel the following situation
(Bergerac 1657, see Fig. 3): “Je m’estois attaché
tout autour de moy quantité de fioles pleines de
rosée et la chaleur du soleil qui les attiroit m’esleva
si haut qu’à la fin je me trouvai au dessus des plus
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water 27

Fig. 2 Dew sampler used by Wells. From “The Dew-Drop and the Mist or, an Account of the Nature,
Properties, Dangers, and use of dew and mist in various parts of the world” (1847: 28), published
in London anonymously (115 pp.), but likely by Charles Tomlinson (1808-1897), who published
later (1867) a very similar title: „The Dew-Drop and the Mist: An Account of the Phenomena and
Properties of Atmosphere“ (346 pp.). / Tausammler, wie ihn Wells benutzte. Aus: „The dew-drop
and the mist or, an account of the nature, properties, dangers, and use of dew and mist in various
parts of the world“ (1847), S. 28, anonym publiziert in London (115 S.), wahrscheinlich aber von
Charles Tomlinson (1808-1897), der später einen ähnlichen Titel publizierte: „The Dew-Drop and
the Mist: An Account of the Phenomena and Properties of Atmosphere“ (346 S.).

hautes nuées [I put around me a lot of phials full majales, salia vestra… creditis me hoc vostro
of dew, and the heat of the sun, attracted by it, turpiloquio tristitia effici! [Prepare your rain and
drew me to altitudes above the highest clouds]” May water, your salts … believe me that misery
(quoted after Canseliet 1991: 94). creeps over me with your blather!]”

George Starkey (1628-1665), who called him-
self Irenaeus Philalethes, a British alchemist
(Robert Boyle was a student of his) scoffs at
the use of “water which has fallen from heav-
en” (Philalethes 1667; quoted after Canseliet
1991: 94): “Tractate aquas vestras pluviales,
The “dew sampler” shown in Fig. 1a may also
have been used for rain water collection set below
a vessel or similar device for water sampling as de-
scribed by Marggraf 100 years later (cf. next sec-
tion). Similarly, Evelyn’s phrase “… clean linen be
spread all night in any court or garden, the least
28 Detlev Möller
Fig. 3 Copper plate from “L’histoire comique con-
tenant les états et empires de la lune” by
Cyrano de Bergerac (1657) showing a man
ascending into the air with vials filled with
dew. / Kupferplatte aus „L’histoire co-
mique contenant les états et empires de la
lune“ von Cyrano von Bergerac (1657), die
einen aufsteigenden Mann zeigt, an dessen
Gürtel Phiolen gefüllt mit Tau hängen.
infested as to appearance: but especially if it hap-
pens to rain, … dust dancing upon the surface of
it …” can be interpreted as the first description of
a “deposition gauge” (Evelyn 1661: 32).
5.2 Precipitation chemistry
Sampling and treatment of precipitation was first
performed by Ole Borch, latinised to Olaus Bor-
richius, (1626-1690), Danish alchemist, in 1674:
“100 pounds of snow or rain or hail water, evap-
orated in a vitreous vessel, transmuted into dusty
DIE ERDE
earth, partly seemed to consist of common salt”
(quoted after Kopp 1843: 255). This looks to me
as the first evidence for sea salt (NaCl) in pre-
cipitation. However, for Borrichius (he referred
to Dickinson and even to Newton) it was the
confirmation of the ancient hypothesis of water
convertibility (Kopp 1843). Edmund Dickinson
(1624-1707), physician of King James II, intensely
interested in alchemy and chemistry and a much
respected person in that time, distilled water a
hundred times and always found earth after evap-
oration, which he interpreted as transmutation
(Dickinson 1686). It is known that Newton owned
an annotated and dog-eared copy of Dickin-
son’s alchemical book; he expounded his corpus-
cular theory of light but also speculated on al-
chemical transmutation (Newton 1704). It was not
until 1732 that Herman(nus) Boerhaave (1668-
1738), a Dutch alchemist, concluded for the first
time that the earth remaining after the distillation
of rain water originated from dust which is per-
manently present in the atmosphere and depos-
ited into the vessel (Boerhaave 1732).
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (1709-1782), German
chemist in Berlin, collected and analysed rain and
snow water for purely analytical interests between
1749 and 1751 in Berlin; he also analysed different
natural (potable) waters to check their quality
(Marggraf 1753). He also found ammonium, be-
cause of its odour, after repeated distillation of rain
water. Altogether, he found in rain water (by iden-
tifying the crystals): nitrate (saltpetre), calcium,
sodium and chloride (common salt), and organic
substrate (“sticky and oily brown remains”). He as-
sumed that its origin was from salty and earthy com-
ponents. He also found the rainwater to be rotting.
In snow, he found more hydrochloric acid than nitric
acid, and vice versa in rain (Fig. 4). Marggraf, how-
ever, also found “earth” several times, i.e. silica and
lime, after distillation of pure water. Therefore, he
also confirmed the transmutation idea. Boer-
haave’s objection that the earth found in water was
from atmospheric dust was “disproved” by Marg-
graf by a distillation in a hermetically closed alem-
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water 29

Fig. 4 Rain water chemical composition (among other natural waters) from Berlin, Marggraf 1753: 157
Chemische Zusammensetzung von Regenwasser (neben anderen natürlichen Wässern) aus Berlin,
Marggraf 1753: 157

bic. However, Lavoisier proved (1770), by exact glass vessel for a long time is due to the dissolu-
weighing, that the “earth” after boiling water in a tion of glass. Nevertheless, I assume that an
30 Detlev Möller DIE ERDE

Tab. 1 Early reports on precipitation sampling. If no source is given in the bibliography, cited after Ludwig
1862; see also Gmelin 1852: 836-839 / Frühe Berichte über Niederschlagsmessungen. Wenn in der
Bibliographie keine Quelle angegeben wird, zitiert nach Ludwig 1862; s. auch Gmelin 1852: 836-839

Year What and were Author (see references)

1814 Rain Stark

1814 Paris, hail Girardin
1824 Rain Zimmermann
1825 Bad Salzuflen, rain Brandes
1834 Freiberg, rain and snow Lampadius
1834 Rain Bohling
1842 Eastern Pomerania, snow Bertels

absorption of NH3 and CO2 (both gases produce
different carbonates and carbamates when dis-
solved in water) also occurred as a laboratory arte-
fact, given the high ammonia concentration in the
ambient air (100 years later Smith (1879) wrote that
the air of towns was full of ammonia).
In the 19th century, rain water sampling began af-
ter Liebig’s formulation of the mineral theory
which held that plants take up nitrogen as ammo-
nia, carbon as carbonic acid and sulphur as sul-
phuric acid from the air for their nutrition (mineral
theory, see Vogel 1883). Justus von Liebig (1803-
1873), German chemist, is known as the “father of
the fertilizer industry”; he is regarded as one of
the greatest chemistry teachers ever. In 1824, at
the age of 21, with Humboldt’s recommendation,
Liebig became a professor at the University of
Gießen, where he established the world’s first
major school of chemistry. In the years 1826 and
1827 Liebig collected 77 rain water samples in
Gießen and detected nitrate and ammonium (Lie-
big 1835). Liebig (1865) wrote that contemporary
studies had shown that nitric acid was always
contained in rain and often more in weight than
ammonium and that, as a result, nitric acid was a
permanent companion of ammonia in the air. Be-
fore Liebig’s findings, there was a number of stud-
ies in precipitation chemistry in the early 19th cen-
tury, all from Germany, with one exception
(Tab. 1). All these early rain studies were based
on evaporation. Stark (1814) found lime (Ca) in
rain. Zimmermann’s analysis is remarkable (1824),
he detected metals (Mn, Fe, Ni), HCl and organic
matter (“pyrrhin”) for the first time (beside NH4+,
H2CO3, K, Ca and Mg). In 1825, Simon Rudolph
Brandes (1795-1842), a German pharmacist (not to
be confused with the German meteorologist Hein-
rich Wilhelm Brandes)found between 0.8 (in May)
and 6.5 ppm (in January) total dissolved material
and identified NH4+, NaCl, CaCl2, CaHCO3, CaSO4,
MgSO4, MgCl2, MnO, FeO, and organic matter.
The substance first identified by Zimmermann and
called “pyrrhin” was characterised some years lat-
er (1828) by Vogel as not a specific substance but
as water-soluble organic matter in general. Lam-
padius (1837) stated that pyrrhin was nothing
else than “Humus der Sonnnenstäubchen, vom
trockenen Lande aufgeweht” (in modern Eng-
lish: “humic-like substances from atmospheric
aerosol originating from soil dust resuspen-
sion”). With regard to the organic matter which
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Brandes had found he distinguished two kinds:
one soluble in water and another, “animalic”,
soluble in potash. The term “organic chemis-
try” was first used by Berzelius in 1806 in Swed-
ish (organisk kemie; Walden 1941). Before
that, “organic matter” was called “organised”
or “animal” matter. In Germany, the first text-
book on “Organische Chemie” was published
by Gmelin in 1817. Marggraf (1753) had al-
ready identified organic matter in the rain of
Berlin and called it “particules visqueuses &
huileuses” (viscous and oily particles).
First quantitative estimates of rain water compo-
nents were made in 1848 in Wiesbaden by Fre-
senius. In the 1850s, a number of French scien-
tists started rain and deposition studies (almost
all because of agro-chemical interests, hence fo-
cused on nitrogen, see Tab. 2).
In addition, hail studies were popular (e.g. Gi-
rardin 1839) and the book (1854) by Pieter
Harting (1812-1885), Dutch chemist and bota-
nist in Utrecht, was reviewed by an unknown
author (1856) with the interesting finding that
hailstones always contained a white opaque
nucleus (often several) in the middle and air
bubbles; in the melted water earthy parts (vol-
Tab. 2 French precipitation studies around 1850 / Niederschlagsstudien in Frankreich um 1850
Year Author (see references)
1850 Marchand
1851-52 Barral
1853 Boussingault
1855 Filhol
1850’s Pierre
1852-53 Bineau
1850-52 Bobière
31
canic ash), grains of sand, ammonia, diatoms,
pyrite and organic matter were found.
Robert Angus Smith (1817-1874) was a Scottish
chemist who investigated numerous environmen-
tal issues. He was a scholar of Liebig’s and stud-
ied rain chemistry in 1848 in Manchester (Fig. 5),
for the first time from an air pollution point of view.
He published his findings on different kinds of rain
for the first time in 1852 (since that time the term
“acid rain” has been used). He was appointed Queen
Victoria’s first inspector under the Alkali Acts Ad-
ministration of 1863. His famous book (Smith 1872)
was the first monograph on air chemistry.
In 1897 Henriet’s book was published in Paris in
the style of a modern monograph on atmospher-
ic chemistry (H. Henriet was a chemist at the
Montsouri Observatory near Paris; he published
many papers on ozone and other air constituents).
He was probably the first to use the term
“chimique de l’atmosphère”. In his introduction
he emphasised the importance of air chemistry
monitoring. Rain water sampling started along
with trace gas measurements in 1881 at the Mont-
souris Observatory, in a park close to the centre
of Paris (the station is known world-wide for the
first quantitative ozone monitoring).
Place
Fécamp
Paris
Paris
Toulouse
Caën
Lyon
Nantes
32 Detlev Möller DIE ERDE

Fig. 5 Residual from evaporated rain water, from Smith 1872: 382ff.: “In the rain of Manchester there is
confusion of crystals; although sulphates are prominent. I do not see crystals of common salt. It
would appear that decomposition takes place … when sulphuric acid passes into the atmosphere
in towns it probably seizes part of the sodium of the common salt in the same way, and so liberates
hydrochloric acid – an alkali-work continually in action.” / Rückstände von abgedampftem
Regenwasser, aus Smith 1872: 382ff.: „Im Regen von Manchester befindet sich ein Gewirr von
Kristallen; wobei Sulfate dominierend sind. Ich kann keine Kristalle von Kochsalz erkennen. Es
scheint, dass eine Zerlegung stattgefunden hat … wenn Schwefelsäure durch die Luft der Städte zieht
und wahrscheinlich einen Teil des Natriums des Kochsalzes in derselben Weise traktiert und dabei
Salzsäure freisetzt, wie es kontinuierlich in einer Alkalifabrik abläuft.“

The first long-term rain sampling monitoring
started in 1853 at the agricultural research site in
Rothamsted (Lawes et al. 1882). After 1860, a
number of long-term studies was implemented at
different locations (Tab. 3). Oskar Kellner (1851-
1911), a German chemist, together with Liebig and
Hellriegel considered as a pioneer in agricultur-
al chemistry and called the “father” of Japanese
agricultural chemistry, came to Japan in 1881
where he conducted first precipitation chemis-
try measurements from 1883 to 1885. He had
been an assistant of Wolff’s at Hohenheim; in
1880 he was awarded a professorship in Tokyo
and stayed in Japan for 12 years. From 1893 until
his death in 1911 he was the director of the Möck-
ern experimental station in Saxony. Several rain
water monitoring stations existed in the first
half of the 20th century using so-called deposi-
tion gauges (see, e.g., Ashworth 1933). After
World War II, rain water studies from an agri-
cultural point of view first started in Sweden in
1947 (Egnér et al. 1949) to study nitrogen (as
NH 4+ and NO 3 -) and sulphur input. To my
knowledge, the last to quote Marggraf’s early
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Tab. 3 First long-term precipitation chemistry monitoring (cited after Warington 1889), in ppm as
nitrogen / Die erste chemische Langzeit-Niederschlagsbeobachtung (zitiert nach Warington
1889), bezogen auf Stickstoff
Germany Montsouris
(13 yr) (10 yr)
Nitrate 0.47 0.70
Ammonium 0.146 0.18
finding that nitrate is contained in rain was
Torstensson (1954) (wrongly written as “Mark-
graf” and without bibliographic data).
Remarkably, scientists from many disciplines were
interested in the chemical composition of rain and
snow water in the mid-19th century and, conse-
quently, reviews on original studies can be found
in several books, e.g. a review on precipitation
chemical studies (in Pierre 1859 in French, almost
completely translated into English and published
in Smith 1872: 232ff.). Other good summaries of
rain (and other natural) water studies were pre-
sented by Liebig and Kopp (1853: 705ff., Mole-
schott (1859: 387ff.) and Ludwig (1862: 1ff.).
5.3 Fog and cloud chemistry
In contrast to precipitation chemistry, it was much
more difficult to collect water from fog or clouds,
primarily because appropriate sampling tech-
niques (from an analytical point of view), were
missing and due to the irregular and infrequent
occurrence of fog and the labour-intensive sam-
pling on mountains. The first chemical analyses
of fog water were carried out by Boussingault at
Liebfrauenberg in Alsace, in Paris and in the Rhine
valley (1853-54). Boussingault found nitrate, be-
tween 2 mg per l (at the mountain site) and 138
mg per l (in Paris), and an ammonium concentra-
tion of 10 mg per l in Paris. Unfortunately, he was
only interested in nitrogen, from an agricultural
33
Lincoln,
Rothamsted,
Newzealand Tokyo (2 yr)
London
(3 yr)
0.150 0.085 0.19
0.096 0.126 0.84
point of view, and therefore he did not analyse any
other substance (also in rain, snow and dew). No
other cloud studies are known from the 19th cen-
tury, except for urban fog (called town fog in the
19th century, see next section). Only after World
War II cloud studies were initiated, first in the
USA (Houghton 1955), later in Germany (Mrose
1966), Russia (Petrenchuk and Drozdova 1966) and
Japan (Okita 1968). Systematic studies around the
world began in the 1980s: for example in Italy (San-
dro Fuzzi), California/USA (Jeff Collett, Daniel
Jacob, Jed Waldman, William Munger, Michael
Hoffmann, Volker Mohnen and others) but also
in Germany (Hans-Walther Georgii, Wolfgang
Jaeschke). The most extensive and so far longest
cloud chemistry monitoring programme started in
1992 at Mt. Brocken (Harz, Germany) where more
than 25.000 water samples based on hourly collec-
tions have been analysed over the last 15 years
(Acker et al. 1996). It is planned to continue this pro-
gramme for another 15 years under the name of BRO-
CLIM, Brocken Cloud Chemistry Climatology.
5.4 From smoke and town fog to smog
(urban fog)
John Evelyn (1620-1706), an educated writer and
one of the founders of the Royal Society in Lon-
don (1660), wrote the first book on air pollution
(Evelyn 1661: 8ff.): “… in Clouds of Smoake and
Sulphur, so full of Stink and Darkness … It is this
horrid Smoake which obscures our Churches, and
34 Detlev Möller
makes our Palaces look old, which our Clothes, and
corrupts the Waters, so as the very Rain, and re-
freshing Dew which fall in the several Seasons,
precipitate this impure vapour, which, with its black
and tenacious quality, spots and contaminates
whatever is exposed to it. … poysoning the Aer
with so dark and thick a Fog, as I have been hardly
able to pass through it, for the extraordinary stench
and halitus it send forth;… Arsenical vapour, as
well as Sulphur, breathing sometimes from this
intemperate use of Sea-Coale… our London Fires,
there results a great quantity of volatile Salts, which
being very sharp and dissipated by the Smoake,
doth infect the Aer, and so incorporate with it, that
the very Bodies of those corrosive particles…”
Evelyn’s remark on p. 28 concerns volatile salts
and their corrosive effects after distribution in the
air and may form the first evidence for gaseous
(and, consequently, dissolved) HCl in the urban
air. His expression “… traveller … sooner smells
than sees the city ...” (Evelyn 1661: 19) gives us
an idea on the air pollution level. The terms
‘smoake’ and ‘clouds’ in Evelyn’s booklet (only
once he uses the term ‘fog’) surely mean what we
now call by the word smog, an artificial expression
coined by Harold (Henry) Antoine des Voeux, a
French physician living in London, honorable
treasurer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society
(formed in 1882) and later President of the National
Smoke Abatement Society (Marsh 1947) in his
paper “Fog and Smoke” for a meeting of the Pub-
lic Health Congress in 1905.
Until the end of the 20th century, when the air pol-
lution problems associated with the combustion
of fossil fuels seem to have been solved (still un-
solved is the climate change problem due to car-
bon dioxide), sulphur dioxide and soot (smoke)
have been the key air pollutants for centuries. Coal
has been used in cities on a large scale since the
beginning of the Middle Ages; and this ‘coal era’
has not ended yet. Remarkably, the term ‘smog’
is not used in Marsh’s book “Smoke” (Marsh
1947). Concerning the “relationship between fog
DIE ERDE
and smoke”, Marsh wrote that fog was a natural
phenomenon, whereas smoke, passing through
fog, could not dissipate like in non-foggy weath-
er because of the absence of air currents, and the
“clean natural fog gradually becomes more and
more impregnated with smoke” (this is not correct
because smoke particles act as condensation
nuclei, and thus “clean natural fog” could not
possibly have appeared in cities like London in
those years). Smoke and fog as contemporaneous
phenomena were scientifically described by Ju-
lius Berend Cohen (1859-1935), professor for or-
ganic chemistry in Leeds who had studied chem-
istry in Munich. He defined: “Town fog is mist
made white by Nature and painted any tint from
yellow to black by her children; born of the air of
particles of pure and transparent water, it is con-
taminated by man with every imaginable abomi-
nation. That is town fog” (Cohen 1895: 369).
Cohen conducted laboratory experiments and
concluded: “The more dust particles there are, the
thicker the fog” (Cohen 1895: 371). Carbonic acid
(CO2) and sulphurous acid (SO2) were observed
to increase rapidly during fog, and, “… although
I have no determinations of soot to record, the fact
that it increases also is sufficiently evident,” he
wrote. With these terms the acid anhydrides CO2
and SO2 were mentioned in the literature of the 19th
century and not the acids H2CO 3 and H2SO3
(sometimes also named gaseous carbonic acid).
Fog water particles become coated with a film of
sooty oil. Consequently, fog persists longer than
under clean conditions. Francis Albert Rollo
Russell (1849-1914), a British meteorologist, used
the expression “smoky fog” and wrote that “town
fogs contain an excess of chlorides and sulphates,
and about double the normal, or more, of organic
matter and ammonia salts” (Russell 1895: 234).
During the last fortnight of February 1891, the
weight of the fog deposit in Kew (just outside
London) was 0.84 g per m2 which contained
42.5 % carbon, 4.8 % hydrocarbons, 4 % sulphu-
ric acid, 0.8 % hydrochloric acid, 1.1 % ammonia,
and 41.5 % mineral matter (Russell 1895).
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
The observation that fog sometimes has an
odour had been reported much earlier. Lampa-
dius, who still considered fog as a suspension
of vesicles which include an electric fluid, wrote:
“Die Nebel zeigen zuweilen einen Geruch, der in
einigen Fällen jenem der brennbaren Luft, in an-
deren aber sich dem Geruch der elektrischen
Materie nähert. Diese Erscheinung kann uns
vielleicht auf einen chemischen Prozeß der
Wasserzerlegung bey genauerer Beobachtung
führen, oder vermengen sich bloß aufsteigende
Gasarten mit dem Nebel? [Fogs at times have an
odour which in some cases is approximately that
of inflammable air, in other cases resembles that
of electric matter. This phenomenon may lead us
to a chemical process of water decomposition if
more precisely observed, or is it possible that this
is only a result of mixing different kinds of as-
cending gases with fog?]” (Lampadius 1806: 125).
Prout (1834: 315) wrote that “fogs have been
sometimes observed of a strong odour, appar-
ently the result of an admixture of foreign bod-
ies”. A special fog or haze, called “dry fog” (in
modern terms: stratospheric aerosol veils) was
described for the years 1782 and 1783 (due to
the Laki eruption in Iceland).
6. On Dew
William Charles Wells (1757-1817), born in
South Carolina (USA) as the son of Scottish im-
migrants, became physician, philosopher and
printer. He was the first to satisfactorily explain
the phenomenon of dew. He went to England in
1784 and after most decisive experiments on dew
he published his book “An Essay on Dew and
Several Appearances Connected with it” in Lon-
don in 1814. This was the first scientific descrip-
tion of dew formation after a long debate, and
even now it is still generally accepted. Wells
showed that apparently all these phenomena (in-
cluding hoar-frost and mist) resulted from the
effects of heat radiation from the earth’s surface
35
during the absence of the sun. John Tyndall
(1823-1893), the Irish physicist known for the first
explanation of atmospheric heat in terms of the
capacities of various gases to absorb or transmit
radiative heat, wrote the following very clear
phrase: “Aqueous water is always diffused
through the atmosphere. The clearest day is not
exempt from it; indeed, in the Alps, the purest
skies are often the most treacherous, the blue
deepening with the amount of aqueous vapour
in the air. Aqueous vapour is not visible; it is not
fog; it is not cloud, it is not mist of any kind. These
are formed of vapour which has been condensed
to water; but the true vapour is an impalpable trans-
parent gas. It is diffused everywhere throughout
the atmosphere, though in very different propor-
tion” (quoted from Strachan 1866: 123).
The first statement I found in the literature on the
fact that dew contained traces of atmospheric ori-
gin (and not alchemistic elements) besides water
is given by Lampadius (based on his experiment
of 1796) who said that dew consisted of pure wa-
ter and some carbonic acid (2 %) but more than in
rain water (Lampadius 1806). He also wrote that
dew may contain substances emitted from plants
(“Ausdünstungsmaterien”) and had therefore
been used before as medicine – bleaching proper-
ties of dew have been known for centuries – and
for the cleansing of clothes. Textiles had long been
whitened by grass bleaching (spreading the cloth
upon the grass for several months), a method vir-
tually monopolised by the Dutch from the time of
the crusades to the 18th century. They developed a
technique in which the cloths were alternately
soaked in alkaline solutions and grassed, or croft-
ed – a procedure in which they are exposed to air
and sunlight; the textiles were then treated with sour
milk to remove excess alkali. Today, we explain this
phenomenon by surface photo-catalytic oxidant for-
mation, i.e. radicals (OH) either via HNO2 formation
or by direct O2- electron transfers.).
Probably the first chemical study on dew was
conducted by the French chemist Jean-Sébastien-
36 Detlev Möller
Eugène Julia de Fontenelle (1790-1842) who, in
1819, collected 4 litres of dew in the marshes of
Cercle, France, and found chloride, sodium, po-
tassium, sulphate, calcium and carbonate (Fon-
tenelle 1823) and mentioned: “This water was in-
odorous, without colour, and clean; in a short
time it deposited small flakes of nitrogenous
matter” (quoted from Pierre 1859: 41, also in
Smith 1872: 241). The first quantitative estimates
of ammonia in dew are known from Boussingault
(1853) taken at Mt. Liebfrauenberg (3-50 mg per l)
and from the German agricultural chemists Wolf
and Knop, gathered at Möckern near Leipzig in
1860 (1-6 mg per l). While Boussingault collected
dew using a sponge, Wolf and Knop collected
dew with a glass cup from grass leaves before
sunrise (Knop 1868, annex: 77f.).
Renewed interest in dew formation, its physics
and chemistry, arose after 1960 because of sev-
eral aspects: first, due to dry deposition on wet-
ted surfaces (Chang et al. 1967; Brimblecombe
and Todd 1977), second, because of ecological
considerations in the last two decades (dew as
source of moisture for plants, biological crusts,
insects and small animals, e.g. Jacobs et al.
2000) and its potential use as potable water
(Beysens et al. 2006; Muselli et al. 2006) and fi-
nally from an air chemical point of view, now also
termed interfacial chemistry (Rubio et al. 2006,
Acker et al. 2007). Beysens (1995) closed the
“historical cycle” to Wells (1814) with his de-
scription of dew formation.
7. Conclusion
Today, an uncountable number of precipitation
chemistry study sites exist, often only active for
short periods with sometimes barely more than a
dozen samples that are collected and analysed for
whatever purpose. The history of atmospheric
water studies, at least since the systematic moni-
toring in the second half of the 19th century –
which is certainly unknown to most modern “pre-
DIE ERDE
cipitation chemists” – does not only create re-
spect for our scientific ancestors but may definite-
ly help to avoid many scientifically meaningless
studies of the kind that have appeared over the
last 20 years. Nevertheless, the history of explor-
ing the atmospheric waters is not yet closed and
is likely to remain endless. The endeavour remains
to learn from previous studies to ask the appro-
priate open questions and draw the right conclu-
sions for further studies.
8. Biographical Notes
Bezold, Wilhelm von (1837-1907) was professor of
meteorology in Munich as well as director of the
Prussian Meteorological Institute. His main interest
as a scientist was the physics of the atmosphere and
he contributed much to the theory of electrical storms.
Boussingault, Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonne (1802-
1887), French agricultural chemist, was the author of
Traité d’économie rurale (1844), which was remo-
delled as Agronomie, chimie agricole et physiologie
(5 vols., 1860-1874; 2nd ed. 1884), translated into
many languages, in German as “Die Landwirthschaft
in ihren Beziehungen zur Chemie, Physik und Meteo-
rologie”, Halle 1851, and supplement „Beiträge zur
Agricultur-Chemie und Physiologie” (1856), with
ample data on ammonia and nitrate in the air.
Brandes, Heinrich Wilhelm (1777-1834), professor of
physics at Leipzig since 1826. Founder of synoptic
meteorology, published the first weather map in 1820.
Dove, Heinrich Wilhelm (1803-1879), German meteo-
rologist, founder of comparative climatology. In 1845
he became professor of physics in Berlin, later direc-
tor of the Prussian Institute of Meteorology. It was
Dove’s major contribution to meteorology “to be the
first to find a system in weather changes”; he is also
regarded as the “father of modern meteorology”;
president of the “Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Ber-
lin” for several periods between 1848 and 1872.
Ferrel, William (1817-1891), American mathemati-
cian, teacher and later meteorologist. Among his
works published during the last ten years of his life
were “Popular Essays on the Movements of the
Atmosphere” (1882), “Temperature of the Atmos-
phere and the Earth’s Surface” (1884), “Recent
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
Advances in Meteorology” (1886), and “A Popular
Treatise on the Winds” (1889).
Hann, Julius von (1839-1921), from 1874 to 1897
professor of physical geography at the university
Vienna; 1897/00 in Graz and again, until 1910, in
Vienna
Hellmann, Johann Georg Gustav (1854-1939), pro-
fessor of meteorology at Berlin’s Friedrich-Wil-
helms-Universität, 1907-1922 director of the „Preu-
ßisches Meteorologisches Institut” (later: German
Weather Service); president of the “Gesellschaft für
Erdkunde zu Berlin” for several periods between
1901 and 1918
Howard, Luke (1772-1864), British manufacturing
chemist and amateur meteorologist
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von (1821-
1894), professor of physics, anatomy and physio-
logy at Berlin, Königsberg, Bonn and Heidelberg
Knop, Wilhelm (1817-1891), German professor of
agricultural chemistry in Leipzig (1861-1882), suc-
cessor to Wolff as director of the agricultural experi-
mental station (1856-1866). He wrote several books
on fertilizing and agricultural chemistry. Knop (1868)
mentions Dr. W. Wolf. Most certainly this is not Emil
von Wolff (1818-1896), German agricultural chemist,
who was the first director of the (first German)
agricultural experimental station in Leipzig-Möckern
(1851-1854) and 1854-1894 professor at the Univer-
sity of Hohenheim (today a part of the city of
Stuttgart), but perhaps one of Knop’s assistants.
Kopp, Hermann Franz Moritz (1817-1892), Ger-
man chemist, a student of Liebig’s and later profes-
sor in Heidelberg, since 1843; known for his books
on the history of chemistry
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste [Pierre Antoine de Monet,
Chevalier de] (1744-1829), French biologist and
meteorologist
Ludwig, Herrmann (1819-1873), German professor
of analytical chemistry in Jena
Margules, Max (1856-1920), Austrian meteorolo-
gist; born in Brody (Ukraine), 1885-1906 member
of the “Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie”, worked
especially on tides, established a theory on polar
fronts and air pressure waves.
Moleschott, Jakob (1822-1893), Dutch physicist
and physiologist in Utrecht, Heidelberg and Rome
37
Prout, William (1785-1850), spent his life as a
practising physician in London and occupied him-
self with chemical research in biology and physics.
He is known for his idea that the atomic weight of
every element is a multiple of that of hydrogen.
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Summary: On the History of the Scientific Explora-
tion of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
In this paper the milestones in exploring clouds, fog,
rain and dew in physics and chemistry from Anti-
quity until the end of the 20th century have been
described. While a good description of the phenome-
nology had been available since Aristotle, the actual
DIE ERDE
processes were not understood before the 19th cen-
tury. The key in understanding the transformation
of water through its different states (solid, liquid and
gaseous) was the comprehension of the role of the
heat exchange during evaporation and condensation.
This understanding grew parallel to the understan-
ding of the combustion process as a chemical reac-
tion using atmospheric oxygen. This happened
between 1770 and 1790, with Deluc providing the
best comprehensive description in 1787. Together
with the understanding of the heat exchange associa-
ted with phase transformation, the role of radiation
(direct solar versus terrestrial) was considered, too.
Dew formation was first described correctly by
Wells (1814). However, microphysical cloud dro-
plet reflection was only explained a hundred years
later with the finding that water may condense in the
atmosphere only on condensation particles (Ait-
ken), and with Aßmann closing the long debate of
droplets versus vesicles. Cloud dynamic processes
and rain formation, however, were not generally
understood before the 1920s; measurement plat-
forms (balloons and aircrafts) become a precondition
in improving (and validating) cloud and rain theories
based on mathematical descriptions. Cloud physics
as a subdiscipline did not start before 1960. At the
beginning, the driving force for a better physical
description of the phenomena of atmospheric waters
was pure philosophic interest to understand nature;
later, practical purposes became more important
with meteorological monitoring for weather forecas-
ting and climatology. Chemistry of atmospheric waters
started in the Middle Ages with the alchemistic
attempt to transmute water coming from the atmo-
sphere (“heaven”). On the other hand, already at that
time (in the mid-17th century), fog and rain (and likely
dew) were considered to be polluted in towns but also
regarded as cleansing agents. The first semi-quantita-
tive chemical analysis of rain and snow was conduc-
ted by Marggraf in Berlin around 1750, with the
purpose to consider the hygienic quality of potential
drinking-water. More detailed rain water analyses
were performed at the beginning of the 19th century
for the same reasons and in combination with the
application of newly developed methods in analyti-
cal chemistry. Liebig’s theory of plant nutrition from
air promoted a rapidly increasing number of chemical
studies of rain and fog. Since then, agricultural inte-
rests form an important base for rain water chemistry
2008/1-2 History of the Exploration of Fog, Dew, Rain and Other Atmospheric Water
monitoring. Air pollution in urban areas but also
forest damages (in Germany) stimulated several stu-
dies at the end of the 19th century. Deposition studies
(bulk sampling) due to the smoke problem started
after 1910. The aim to understand matter cycles, first
between local and regional scales, initiated precipita-
tion chemistry in the 1930s which led to systematic
research since the 1950s.
Zusammenfassung: Zur Geschichte der wissen-
schaftlichen Erforschung von Nebel, Tau, Regen
und anderem Atmosphärenwasser
Dieser Artikel beschreibt die wichtigsten Etappen
in der Erkundung von Wolken, Nebel, Regen und
Tau von der Antike bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhun-
dert. Während die Phänomenologie des Atmosphä-
renwassers bereits seit Aristoteles gut beschrieben
wurde, verstand man die Prozesse erst im 19. Jahr-
hundert. Das Verständnis über die Phasenumwand-
lung des Wassers (in seiner flüssigen, gasförmigen
und festen Form) wurde erst möglich, nachdem die
Rolle des Wärmeaustauschs während des Verdamp-
fens und Kondensierens klar wurde. Zwischen 1770
und 1790, als Deluc im Jahr 1787 die bis dahin
klarste Theorie vorstellte, wuchs dieses Verständ-
nis zeitgleich mit dem Verstehen des Verbrennungs-
prozesses als chemischer Reaktion unter Bindung
von Luftsauerstoff. Zugleich wurde mit dem Ver-
ständnis des Wärmeaustausches im Zusammenhang
mit dem Phasenübergang auch die solare Strahlung
(sowohl die direkte als auch die terrestrische) be-
trachtet. Die Taubildung wurde erstmals 1814 durch
Wells korrekt beschrieben. Eine mikrophysikali-
sche Beschreibung der Wolkentropfen wurde je-
doch erst 100 Jahre später möglich, nach der Er-
kenntnis, dass Wasser in der Atmosphäre nur an
Kondensationskernen (Aitken) kondensieren kann.
Auch wurde die lang anhaltende Diskussion, ob es
sich um Tropfen oder Bläschen handelt, durch Aß-
mann beendet. Die dynamischen Prozesse in Wol-
ken und die Regenbildung wurden jedoch prinzipiell
erst in den 1920er Jahren verstanden, wobei Mess-
plattformen (Ballons und Flugzeuge) eine Voraus-
setzung für die Verbesserung (und Verifizierung)
von auf mathematischen Modellen basierenden
Wolken- und Regentheorien bildeten. Die Wolken-
43
physik als eine Teildisziplin entwickelte sich aber
nicht vor 1960. Die treibende Kraft zu einer besseren
physikalischen Beschreibung des Atmosphärenwas-
sers war zunächst reines philosophisches Interesse
am Verständnis der Natur. Erst mit den beginnenden
meteorologischen Aufzeichnungen für Wettervor-
hersage und Klimatologie nahmen praktische Erwä-
gungen an Bedeutung zu. Die Chemie des Atmosphä-
renwassers begann im Mittelalter mit alchemisti-
schen Versuchen der Transmutation (Umwandlung)
von Wasser, welches aus der Atmosphäre („dem
Himmel“) stammte. Andererseits hatte man bereits
in dieser Zeit (der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts) Nebel
und Regen (und wahrscheinlich auch Tau) sowohl als
verschmutzt als auch als reinigende Agenzien in
Städten beschrieben. Eine erste halbquantitative
chemische Analyse von Regen und Schnee wurde
durch Marggraf um 1750 in Berlin durchgeführt, mit
dem Ziel einer hygienischen Bewertung als Quelle
für Trinkwasser. Mit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts
wurden genauere und umfangreichere Regenwasser-
analysen, aus hygienischen Gründen aber auch der
Anwendung der sich entwickelnden neuen analyti-
schen Methoden, durchgeführt. Liebigs Theorie der
Pflanzendüngung aus der Luft führte zu einer zuneh-
menden Anzahl chemischer Untersuchungen von
Regen und Nebel. Das landwirtschaftliche Interesse
blieb seit dieser Zeit eine wichtige Grundlage für
niederschlagschemische Messreihen. Die Luftver-
schmutzung in Städten, aber auch Waldschäden in
Deutschland initiierten zahlreiche Untersuchungen
zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wegen der Rauch-
frage begannen nach 1910 Depositionsuntersuchun-
gen (bulk-Probenahme). Mit dem Ziel, Stoffkreis-
läufe zuerst zwischen lokaler und regionaler Ebene
zu verstehen, wurde die Niederschlagschemie in den
1930er Jahren etabliert, was in den 1950er Jahren zu
systematischer Forschung führte.
Résumé: Sur l’histoire de la recherche scientifique
du brouillard, de la rosée, de la pluie et des autres
eaux atmosphériques
Le présent article décrit les étapes les plus importan-
tes dans l’exploration de nuages, brouillard, pluie et
rosée de l’Antiquité jusqu’au XXe siècle. Alors que
la phénoménologie de l’eau atmosphérique était déjà
44 Detlev Möller
bien décrite à l’Antiquité, les processus n’ont été
compris qu’au XIXe siècle. La compréhension du
changement de phases de l’eau (dans son état liquide,
gazeux et solide) n’était pas possible avant que le
rôle du transfert de chaleur pendant l’évaporation et
la condensation soit devenu clair. Cette compréhen-
sion augmentait dans la période de 1770 à 1790 lors
que l’on comprenait de plus en plus le processus de
la combustion en tant que réaction chimique sous
utilisation d’oxygène, quand, en 1787, Deluc en a
présenté la théorie la plus claire. En même temps,
lors de la combinaison du transfert de chaleur et le
changement de phase, on avait également pris en
considération le rayonnement solaire (direct et ter-
restre). La première description correcte sur la for-
mation de rosée, par Wells, date de l’année 1814.
Cependant, la description microphysique des gout-
tes de nuages n’a été réalisée que 100 ans plus tard,
après que l’on avait découvert que l’eau dans l’at-
mosphère ne peu condenser qu’avec des noyaux de
condensation (Aitken). C’était Aßmann qui termi-
nait finalement la longue discussion sur s’il s’agit de
gouttes ou de vésicules. Pourtant, les processus
dynamiques dans les nuages et la formation de la
pluie n’ont été compris que dans les années 1920.
Avec ça, les plateformes de mesure (des ballons et
des avions) sont devenues indispensables pour
l’amélioration (et la vérification) des théories de
nuages et de pluie basées sur des modèles mathéma-
tiques. Or, la physique des nuages en tant que
discipline ne se développait pas avant 1960. Au
début, la force vive d’une meilleure description des
eaux atmosphériques était l’intérêt purement philo-
sophique à comprendre la nature, les aspects prati-
ques n’ont gagné de l’importance qu’avec les enre-
gistrements météorologiques pour les prévisions du
temps et la climatologie. La chimie des eaux atmos-
phériques est née au Moyen Age avec des essais
alchimiques de la transmutation (transformation)
d’eau de l’atmosphère (« du ciel »). De l’autre coté,
DIE ERDE
à cette époque-là (au milieu du XVIIe siècle) on avait
déjà décrit le brouillard et la pluie (et, probablement,
également la rosée) comme agent à la fois sale et
purifiant dans les villes. Une première analyse chi-
mique semi-quantitative de pluie et de neige a été
réalisé par Marggraf en 1750 à Berlin et avait comme
but l’évaluation hygiénique de l’eau potable. Des
analyses plus importantes et plus précises de l’eau
pluviale ont été réalisées dès le début du XIXe siècle,
non seulement pour des raisons hygiéniques, mais
aussi pour l’application des nouvelles méthodes
analytiques en voie de développement. La théorie de
Liebig sur la nutrition de plantes par l’air a engendré
un nombre croissant d’analyses chimiques de la pluie
et du brouillard. L’intérêt agricole est désormais une
des bases les plus importantes pour des séries de
mesure en chimie de précipitation. La pollution de
l’air dans les villes ainsi que le dépérissement des
forêts en Allemagne ont entraîné de nombreuses
recherches vers la fin du XIXe siècle. À cause du
problème de la fumée, on a commencé des recherches
de déposition (bulk sampling) après l’année 1910.
Dans le but de comprendre les circuits de matière,
d’abord entre l’échelle locale et régionale, la chimie
des précipitations s’est établie dans les années 1930
et est systématiquement analysée depuis 1950.
Prof. Dr. Detlev Möller, Atmospheric Chemistry
and Air Pollution Control, Faculty of Environmental
Sciences and Process Engineering, Brandenburg
Technical University, P.O. Box 10 13 44, 03013
Cottbus, moe@btu-lc.fta-berlin.de
Manuskripteingang: 10.01.2008
Annahme zum Druck: 28.05.2008