WATER SPOTTsS. 10g 
expelled, which was previoufly incumbent upon the calm 
furface beneath; the electric attraction of which probably 
affifts the further afcent of thefe particles after the firft fury 
of the blaft is fpent. ‘There it undergoes another opera- 
tion being converted into vapor, whereby it is wholly dif- 
charged of the marine falts it carried up with it*; which 
are now left to fhift for themfelves, together with innu- 
merable other heterogeneous corpufcles which fuceflively 
float in the atmofphere, and which in due time, become 
feverally fubfervient to many wife purpofes in the cecono= 
my of nature. Thefe vapors will then be greedily attach- 
ed by the craving particles of this air, now deficient of its 
natural quantity of electric mattert, and form a denfe 
cloud, in like manner as thunder clouds are formed over 
the land; but with much greater expedition, as the fupply 
of vapors is more fudden. This cloud will then be ready 
in a fhort time to difcharge a fhower of frefh water upon 
the fea from whence it rofe, and may be attended with 
thunder and lightening, or not, as the air in which the 
cloud was formed was more or lefs electrical, or the cloud. 
extentfive. 
A previous calm may not be neceffary to the production 
of thefe phenomena, and indeed they frequently happen 
without one: But, upon the fame principle, if it be calm- 
er where they are produced, or the ftate of the atmofphere 
there be fuch as to difpote it to acquire and retain the heat 
acquired from the fun’s rays, more than in the furround- 
ing regions, which, as we have feen above, may be the 
eale, the effects may be the fame in kind, though perhaps 
not in-degree; the moft perfe& water fpouts probably rif- 
ing from whence there has previoufly been a dead calm, 
or nearly fuch, for the foregoing reafons. 
If 
* The water carried up in one of thefe fpouts is undoubtedly falt when it firft rifes frem the 
fea, asit afcends in great quantities, and in a very denfe column; but it is always frefh when it 
defcends again in a fhower: It muft therefore in the mean time have gone through a. compleat: 
natural diitillation. 
4, Theory of Lightening, &c. page 92. 
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