A WHIRLWIND IN ENGLAND. 145 



often have such things in England; nevertheless, the 

 following is an instance of a minor whirlwind which 

 did occur there. It took place on the banks of the 

 Thames, opposite Taplow Court, Maidenhead, on July 

 4, 1890, when "a whirlwind suddenly carried several 

 cocks of hay from a field, to a great height. Some 

 of the hay was carried across the river, and dropped 

 at a considerable distance on the further bank. A 

 large quantity of water was also lifted from the Thames, 

 to a height of over 12 feet." * 



These phenomena therefore, though perhaps more 

 common in the Desert Zone than elsewhere, may, it 

 is clear, occur almost anywhere, and at any moment, 

 provided the condition of the atmosphere is in that 

 peculiar state of disturbance which produces them. 



We must close this section with a short review of 

 the general conditions which the terrestrial atmosphere 

 bears towards the earth; and as it seems to us we 

 must regard the latter almost as a fish floating in the 

 centre of an aerial ocean, which envelops it with a 

 gaseous fluid, much as the waters of the sea enclose 

 a fish ; while we, the dwellers upon earth, are constantly 

 living (as do animalculse upon the bed of the ter- 

 restrial sea) at the bottom of a vast atmospheric ocean 

 of enormous depth : how deep it is not known, but the 

 most generally accepted opinion, at present, is that 

 its depth is at least 120 miles and the probabilities 

 are that it is a great deal more; it is suggested that, 

 "in an extremely attenuated form, it may even reach 

 200 miles; "f future investigations, we are inclined to 



* Morning Post of Saturday July 5, 1890. 

 f Encyclop. Brit., gth edit., Vol. iii, p. 35. 



VOL. i. 10 



