98 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



as being one of the most important, as well as one of 

 the most mysterious, operations of the deep sea. 



Let me briefly recapitulate the process in the most 

 superficial manner, which is all any one can do, since 

 the inner workings are hidden from our eyes in the 

 arcana of Nature. All the conditions being favourable, 

 one of them being obviously a great amount of solar 

 heat since the development of a waterspout never 

 takes place in cold weather or at night a collection 

 of clouds approach the sea. There is little wind, for 

 it is obvious that a swiftly-driven cloud would be quite 

 unfit for the leisurely sucking up of a great mass of 

 water, and the dark masses of specially prepared 

 vapour lower over the surface of the comparatively 

 smooth sea. It would appear, too, as if the sea was 

 specially prepared in some strange fashion for what is 

 about to take place, for whenever or wherever the long 

 pendant or tube of cloud approaches the sea surface, 

 the latter becomes violently agitated in a circular 

 direction, looking, indeed, as if it were striving to 

 reach upwards to the sky. Quite a mound of water 

 appears, to the summit of which the pendant of cloud, 

 which has apparently excited this sympathy, presently 

 reaches and joins itself, when immediately the process 

 begins. There is now a flexible column reaching from 

 sea to cloud, so flexible indeed that it may be seen 

 swaying about ; so tenuous that through its walls the 

 water may be observed rushing upwards with a spiral 

 movement as plainly as if the observer were watching 

 the operations of a gigantic pump whose receiving - 

 pipe were of glass. Only in this case there is no 

 spasmodic pulsation of the water such as a pump com- 

 pels, there is a steady upward movement in obedience 



