distinguished between f, fog, and m, mist. It is possible, however, that these practices may arise, not from confusion of idea, but from economy of symbols, when the meaning can be made out from a knowledge of the associated observations.
As regards the distinction between mist and fog, careful consideration of a number of examples leads to the conclusion that the word “fog” is used to indicate not so much the origin or meteorological nature of the obscurity as its effect upon traffic and travellers whether on land or sea. It is, generally speaking, “in a fog” that a traveller loses himself, and indeed the phrase has become proverbial in that sense. A “fog-bell” or “fog-horn” is sounded when the atmosphere is so thick that the aid of sound is required for navigation. A vessel is “fog-logged” or “fog-bound” when it is stopped or detained on account of thick atmosphere. A “fog-signal” is employed on railways when the ordinary signals are obliterated within working distances. A “fog-bow” is the accompaniment of conditions when a mountain traveller is apt to lose his way.
These words are used quite irrespective of the nature of the cloud which interferes with effective vision and necessitates the special provision; the word “mist” is seldom used in similar connexion. We may thus define a fog as a surface cloud sufficiently thick to cause hindrance to traffic. It will be a thick mist if the cloud consists of water particles, a thick haze if it consists of smoke or dust particles which would be persistent even in a dry atmosphere.
It is probable that sailors would be inclined to restrict the use of the word to the surface clouds met with in comparatively calm weather, and that the obscurity of the atmosphere when it is blowing hard and perhaps raining hard as well should be indicated by the terms “thick weather” or “very thick weather” and not by “fog”; but the term “fog” would be quite correctly used on such occasions from the point of view of cautious navigation. If cloud, drizzling rain, or heavy rain cause such obscurity that passing ships are not visible within working distances the sounding of a fog-horn becomes a duty.
The number of occasions upon which fog and mist may be noted as occurring with winds of different strengths may be exemplified by the following results of thirty years for St Mary’s, Scilly Isles, where the observations have always been made by men of nautical experience.
| Wind Force. | 0 & 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8–12 | All Winds. |
| Number of occasions of fog per 1000 observations | 8 | 7 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 3 | <1 | <1 | 47 |
| Number of occasions of mist per 1000 observations | 5 | 6 | 11 | 22 | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 84 |
The use of the word “fog” in the connexion “high fog,” to describe the almost total darkness in the daytime occasionally noted in London and other large cities due to the persistent opaque cloud in the upper air without serious obscuration of the surface layers, is convenient but incorrect.
Regarding “fog” as a word used to indicate the state of the atmosphere as regards transparency considered with reference to its effect upon traffic, a scale of fog intensity has been introduced for use on land or at sea, whereby the intensity of obscurity is indicated by the numbers 1 to 5 in the table following. At sea or in the country a fog, as a rule, is white and consists of a cloud of minute water globules, of no great vertical thickness, which disperses the sunlight by repeated reflection but is fully translucent. In dust-storms and sand-storms dark or coloured fog clouds are produced such as those which are met with in the Harmattan winds off the west coast of Africa. In large towns the fog cloud is darkened and intensified by smoke, and in some cases may be regarded as due entirely to the smoke.
Description of Effects.
| Name. | No. | On Land. | On Sea. | On River. |
| Slight Fog or Mist | 1 | Objects indistinct, but traffic by rail or road unimpeded |
Horizon invisible, but lights and landmarks visible at working distances |
Objects indistinct, but navigation unimpeded |
| Moderate Fog | 2 3 | Traffic by rail requires additional caution Traffic by rail or road impeded |
Lights, passing vessels and landmarks generally indistinct under a mile. Fog signals are sounded |
Navigation impeded, additional caution required |
| Thick Fog | 4 5 | Traffic by rail or road impeded Traffic by rail or road totally disorganized |
Ships’ lights and vessels invisible at 14 mile or less |
Navigation suspended |
The physical processes which produce fogs of water particles are complicated and difficult to unravel. We have to account for the formation and maintenance of a cloud at the earth’s surface; and the process of cloud-formation which is probably most usual in nature, namely, the cooling of air by rarefaction due to the reduction of pressure on ascent, cannot be invoked, except in the case of the fogs forming the cloud-caps of hills, which are perhaps not fairly included. We have to fall back upon the only other process hitherto recognized as causing cloudy condensation in the atmosphere, that is to say, the mixing of masses of mist air of different temperatures. The mixing is brought about by the slow motion of air masses, and this slow motion is probably essential to the phenomenon.
round by the Azores.
| Successive Temperatures of sea | 68° | 68° | 67° | 59° | 54° F. |
| Successive Temperatures of air | 68° | 70° | 67° | 60° | 56° F. |
| Successive States of the atmosphere | clear | clear | clear | shower | mist |
| Successive Temperatures of sea | 67° | 63° | 54° F. |
| Successive Temperatures of air | 66° | 64° | 53° F. |
| Successive State of atmosphere | fair | shower | mist with shower |
Over the sea fog is most frequently due to the cooling of a surface layer of warm air by the underlying cold water. The amount of motion of the air must be sufficient to prevent the condensation taking place at the sea surface without showing itself as a cloud. In a research on the Life History of Surface Air Currents the changes incidental to the movement of the air over the north Atlantic Ocean were traced with great care, and the above examples (Tables I, II) taken from page 72 of the work referred to are typical of the formation of sea fog by the cooling of a relatively warm current passing over cold water.
In conformity with this suggestion we find that fog is most liable to occur over the open ocean in those regions where, as off the Newfoundland banks, cold-water currents underlie warm air, and that it is most frequent at the season of the year when the air temperature is increasing faster than the water temperature. But it is difficult to bring this hypothesis always to bear upon actual practice, because the fog is representative of a temperature difference which has ceased to exist. One cannot therefore observe under ordinary circumstances both the temperature difference and the fog. Doubtless one requires not only the initial temperature difference but also the slow drift of air which favours cooling of the lower layers without too much mixing and consequently a layer of fog close to the surface. Such a fog, the characteristic sea fog, may be called a cold surface fog. From
