THEORY CONFIRMED BY PHENOMENA. 55 



" From the appearance of the first cone, till the disap- 

 pearance of the last, was three quarters of an hour. 



" The wind continued to increase, and the cloud to gather 

 in blackness, and spread in every direction, till it envel- 

 oped the whole heavens. Next came a most vivid flash of 

 lightning, with a most tremendous peal of thunder. It 

 seemed as if heaven and earth had exploded at once, and 

 in an instant all was calm, the sails hung loose, and not a 

 breath of wind could be felt. Rain now began to fall, not 

 in drops, but in torrents, and the wind came in gusts from 

 every point of the compass. It continued to rain and blow 

 in this way about fifteen minutes, after which it ceased, the 

 wind in its former direction, the sky became clear, and we 

 went on our way." 



If any one will carefully examine the phenomena here 

 described, and compare them with the two land spouts de- 

 scribed above, he will perceive their exact similarity in all 

 the most important features, the gathering in of the 

 clouds at the upper end of the spout, where it lost itself in 

 the cloud; the inverted cone of thick vapor descending; 

 the commotion of the water, and the removal of the earth 

 under the spout, and, above all, the rain that occurred after 

 the termination of the spout. 



It is worthy, also, of particular remark, that the rain 

 lasted exactly the same length of time that the principal 

 spout lasted, fifteen minutes, and probably it commenced 

 thirty minutes after the spout, or fifteen minutes after its 

 disappearance. And as this rain and the spout were un- 

 doubtedly parts of the same phenomenon, and if, according 

 to the theory, the rain was condensed in the spout, and car- 

 ried up by the spout, we are led to believe it must have 

 been carried up a great distance, or it would not have taken 

 thirty minutes to ascend and descend. It is true, that, in 

 ascending, it would move upwards much slower than the 

 vortex of air which carried it, for the drops would gradu- 



