THE EARTH. 331 



bilities would have done." Mr Crantz observes, 

 that commonly a couple of hours afterwards a 

 gentle west wind and a visible mist follows, which 

 puts an end to this lusus nature 



It were easy to swell this catalogue of meteors 

 with the names of many others, both in our own 

 climate and in other parts of the world. Such as 

 falling stars, which are thought to be no more 

 than unctuous vapours, raised from the earth to 

 small heights, and continuing to shine till that 

 matter which first raised and supported them 

 being burnt out, they fall back again to the earth 

 with extinguished flame. Burning spears, which 

 are a peculiar kind of aurora borealis : bloody 

 rains, which are said to be the excrements of an 

 insect, that at that time has been raised into the 

 air. Showers of stones, fishes, and ivy-berries, 

 at first, no doubt, raised into the air by tempests 

 in one country, and falling at some considerable 

 distance, in the manner of rain, to astonish ano- 

 ther. But omitting these, of which we know 

 little more than what is thus briefly mentioned, 

 I will conclude this chapter with the description 

 of a water-spout ; a most surprising phenomenon, 

 not less dreadful to mariners, than astonishing to 

 the observer of nature. 



These spouts are seen very commonly in the 

 tropical seas, and sometimes in our own. Those 

 seen by Tournefort, in the Mediterranean, he has 

 described as follows : " The first of these," says 

 this great botanist, " that we saw, was about a 

 musket-shot from our ship. There we perceived 

 the water began to boil, and to rise about a foot 



