WIND ann WATER-SPOUTS, &c. 343 
houfe, and inftantly carried it away, with a negro fellow 
in it, who was afterwards found dead in the path of it. 
Two men and a woman, by the breach of the floor, fell 
into the cellar; one man was driven forceably up into the 
chimney-corner. Thefe were preferved, though much 
bruifed; they were wet with a vapour or mift, as were the 
remains of the floor and the whole path of the fpout. 
This wind raifed boards, timbers, 8c. and carried them 
before it. A joift was found on one end driven near three 
feet into the ground. I imagine the fpout took it in its 
elevated ftate and drove it forceably down. By what I 
can learn of its procedure, it continued but three or four 
feconds of time in a place, pafling along with the celerity 
of a middling wind, conftantly declining in ftrength till 
it ceafed. 
There feems to have been fuch a guft as this at cape 
Cod, about forty years ago, of which I received an ac- 
count from two men who lived in the neighbourhood of 
the place. It came on of a fudden, and was fo violent that 
it threw down a young woman who happened to be in the 
way of it; fhe was forced to lay hold on the bufhes which 
happened to be within her reach, to prevent her being carri- 
ed away by it. It pafled a pond of water, and the people 
wondered it did not fuck up the water, as they conceived it 
to be a water-fpout, but it did not. The young woman 
was however wet with the vapour that accompanied it. 
Of Hurricanes, particularly thofe of the Weft-India I/lands. 
To account fatisfactorily for thefe convulfions of our 
atmofphere, requires a greater number and more circum= 
ftantial obfervations than we are at prefent furnifhed with; 
fo that all that can at prefent be {aid of their origin and 
caufes muft be very conjeCtural. However, fince an at- 
tempt to explain them may give occafion to further and 
more exact obfervations, I fhall proceed to offer my pre= 
fent thoughts concering them. 
Xx 2 I believe 
