Profiles of the mass surface density through Bonnor-Ebert spheres and spheres with an analytical density profile as given in Eq. (1). The gray curves are profiles for different cloud radii θ_cl. For Bonnor-Ebert spheres the cloud radius corresponds to q = q_crit (a), q = 10^-2q_crit (b), and q = 10^-4q_crit (c), where q_crit = 1/14.04. For each assumed cloud radius the central pressure p_c in the considered spheres is the same. The profiles are normalized by the corresponding central mass surface density through a Bonnor-Ebert sphere.