382. On a Sooty Deposit on the Surface of the Sea. 



to my recollection a similar phenomenon which I have noticed 

 on the sea off the coast of Devon. During a residence of five 

 years at Sidmouth, I generally remarked, that after a calm of 

 two or three days, the surface was covered with a deposit 

 which had the appearance of very fine powder intermixed with 

 soot. I at first thought it must have been occasioned by the 

 dust and smoke from the town, but finding it equally diffused 

 over a space of eight or ten miles, and at some distance from 

 the shore (indeed there was every reason to suppose that it 

 extended many miles in every direction), I was obliged to look 

 to some other quarter for the cause of so singular an appear- 

 ance. The absence of all large towns or manufactories in this 

 part of England, induced me to suppose that the matter which 

 so extensively covered the water, must have been conveyed by 

 the winds from the smoke of London, and this opinion was 

 strengthened by the fact, that on every occasion when I had 

 noticed the phenomenon in question, the wind had for some 

 days been blowing from the east. About three years since, I ob- 

 served a magnificent water-spout cross from Torbay to the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of Sidmouth, and being very near the 

 spot where it struck the land, I was enabled to observe that 

 the column of fine spray raised by the vortex, reached fully the 

 height of seven hundred feet, being at least an hundred feet 

 above the top of the cliff". The column was travelling at the 

 time a little north of east, and as the newspapers announced 

 the fall of some small fish in a heavy shower of rain about 

 half an hour afterwards in the streets of Salisbury, they were, no 

 doubt, the small fry swept up with the surface water, and which 

 were kept suspended in the air as long as the vortex lasted. 

 It cannot, therefore, be inconsistent with probability to suppose, 

 that the smoke of London may be conveyed to the coast of 

 Devon by the east wind, and deposited on the sea as soon as 

 the quiet state of the air should allow it to subside. 



G. B. Warren. 



7. Mont le Grand, Exeter, 

 August 5. 1844, 



