‘Water-Spout. 147 
It finally drew itself into the 
cloud; but a small cone, or 
projecting thread, of varying 
size and length, continued for 
ten minutes. At the time, and 
for half an hour after, a severe 
storin of rain was visibly falling 
from the mass of clouds connected with it, the extent being ex- 
actly defined by the breadth of Holloway, Highgate, and Horn- 
sey. About two hours after, on walking from Kentish Town to- 
wards Holloway, it was found that one of the heaviest torrents 
ef rain remembered by the inhabitants had fallen around the 
foot of Highgate-hill; and some persons having seen the pro- 
jecting cloud, an absolute belief existed that a water-spout had 
burst at the crossing of the new and old roads. On proceeding 
towards London, various accounts, agreeing with the superstition 
or preconceived noticns of the bye-standers, were given; but in 
the farm-yard at the three-mile stone it appeared that some hay- 
makers were stacking some hay from a waggon which stood be- 
tween two-ricks, that the same whirlwmd which passed over 
Kentish Town had passed over the loaded waggon with an im- 
petus sufficient to carry it above twenty yards from its station, 
and to put the men upon it and on the rick in fear of their lives. 
Passing the road, it carried with it a stream of hay, and nearly 
unroofing a shed on the other side, filled the air to a great height 
with fragments of hay, leaves, and boughs of trees, which resem- 
bled a vast flight of birds in progress across the interval between 
the London road and Duval’s Lane, towards Hornsey Wood. 
The family of the writer, from his residence a quarter of a mile 
nearer London, beheld the descending cloud, or water-spout, 
‘pass over the spot; and they saw its train, which, at the time, 
they took to be a flight of birds. They afterwards beheld the 
descending cloud draw itself upward, and they and other wit- 
nesses describe it as a vast mass of smoke working about in great 
agitation. ‘To them it was nearly vertical, in a northern direc- 
tion ; and to persons a quarter of a mile north it was nearly ver- 
tical in a southern direction: and all agree that it drew itself up, 
Aithout rain, at a short distance to the east of Duval’s Lane, 
and that it was followed near the earth bythe train of light bodies. 
It appeared also, on various testimony, to let itself down in a 
gradual and hesitating manner, beginning with a sort of knob in 
the cloud, and then descending lower, and curling and twisting 
about, till it shortened, and gradually drew itself into the cloud. 
The inferences, therefore, of the editor, from what he saw and 
heard, are as follow: 
K 2 1, That 
