On the Theory of WVater-Spouts. 219 
gathering cloud. The electricity rushing at right angles in full 
force from every point of direction to one common centre, must 
by the collapsing force of currents raise the water above its level, 
and that elevation may be rendered apparently stationary, du- 
ring the continuation of the same, or perhaps an increased electric 
pressure. Butin cases where the proboscis descends obliquely, 
the stream of electricity at the commencement from the obliquity 
of the attractor will be partial ; and, instead of drawing at once 
from every point to a focus, the fist current flowing in a direct 
line with and towards the descending projectile, and ‘not at right 
angles with the common centre, must give an: oblique direction 
to the accumulating fluid, and instead of collapsing and raising 
the water, produce an eddy, turning a mass in the midstream 
like passing water giving motion to a horizontal wheel. In 
absence of a better hypothesis, electricity is always at hand, like 
phiogiston of old, to fill up the vacuity of every doubtful theory. 
If I am wrong, [ shall be happy to adopt any other more satis- 
factory. I however must candidly confess my ignorance of any 
other element so universally diffused, or so powerful in its agency, 
that could so instantaneously be called into action, aud brought, 
when necessary, from pole to pole, or could produce the chemical 
effect of separating, so rapidly and in such quantity, the fresh 
water from the salt, and carry it upwards from the sea to the 
clouds, Were the waters raised from the sea to the higher 
elevations of the air by mere suction, or raised as waters in a 
pump, the ascending water must of course carry with it all the 
saltness of the ocean, and the rain from such clouds must of ne- 
eessity be salt: were this the case, every isle, and many parts of 
the continents, must be visited by saline showers, and the waters 
of the isles become brackish and unwholesome. If this has ever 
been the case, some of your better informed correspondents may 
be able to instruct, and I should be glad to be guided by such 
information. —I am however inclined to ‘believe that the allwise 
Distributor of every blessing has of his infinite wisdom ordered 
it otherwise, that all the waters drawn up from the sea, that are 
again to descend upon the earth for the support of creation, 
wust go up fresh, and that the hissing and ebullating noise, the 
never-failing attendant of the ascending waterspeut, is occasioned 
by the chemical separation of the water from the salt. 
Such has been my opinion of the cause and origin of the as- 
eending waterspout ; the descending, upon investigation, will be 
found a legitimate of the same family, being only a discharge of 
the water from the positive, that has ascended’ by the electric 
influence atthe negative part of the cloud, and which must, when 
the cloud is overcharged, again fall in rain in all its forms, or in 
a solid column, (hen denominated a waterspout; just as incident, 
. may 
