J14 



A HISTORY OF 



elevated castles, with decayed turrets ; and 

 a thousand forms, for which fancy, .found a 

 resemblance in nature. When the eye had 

 been satisfied with gazing, the whole group 

 of riches seemed to rise in air, and at length 

 vanish into nothing. At such times the wea- 

 ther is quite serene and clear; but compressed 

 with such subtle vapours, as it is in very hot 

 weather ; and these appearing between the 

 eye and the object, give it all that variety of 

 appearances which glasses of different re- 

 frangibilities would have done." Mr. Krantz 

 observes, that commonly a couple of hours 

 afterwards, a gentle west wind and a visible 

 mist follow, which put an end to this lusus 

 natures. 



It were easy to swell this catalogue of me- 

 teors 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 ex- 

 tinguished 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 another. 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 Mediterra- 

 nean, 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 above its 

 level. The water was agitated and whitish ; 

 and, above its surface, there seemed to stand 

 a smoke, such as might be imagined to come 

 from wet straw before it begins to blaze. It 



made a sort of a murmuring sound, like that 

 of a torrent heart at a distance, mixed, at the 

 same time, with a hissing noise, like that of 

 a serpent: shortly after, we perceived a co- 

 lumn of this smoke rise up to the clouds, at 

 the same time whirling about with great rapi- 

 dity. It appeared to be as thick as one's fin- 

 ger; and the former sound still continued. 

 When this disappeared, after lasting forabout 

 eight minutes, upon turning to the opposite 

 quarter of the sky, we perceived another, 

 which began in the manner of the former ; 

 presently after, a third appeared in the west ; 

 and instantly beside it still another arose. 

 The most distant of these three could not be 

 above a musket-shot from the ship. They 

 all continued like so many heaps of wet straw 

 set on fire, that continued to smoke, and to 

 make the same noise as before. We soon 

 after perceived each, with its respective canal, 

 mounting up in the clouds, and spreading 

 where it touched ; the cloud, like the mouth 

 of a trumpet, making a figure, to express it 

 intelligibly, as if the tail of an animal were 

 pulled at one end by a weight. These canals 

 were of a whitish colour, and so tinged, as I 

 suppose, by the water which was contained 

 in them; for, previous to this, they were ap- 

 parently empty, and of the colour of transpa- 

 rent glass. These canals were not straight, 

 but bent in some parts, and far from being 

 perpendicular, but rising in their clouds with 

 a very inclined ascent. But what is very par- 

 ticular, the cloud to which one of them was 

 pointed happening to be driven by the wind, 

 the spout still continued to follow its motion, 

 without being broken ; and passing behind 

 one of the others, the spouts crossed each 

 other, in the form of a St. Andrew's cross. Iji 

 the beginning they were all about as thick aP 

 one's finger, except at the top, where they 

 were broader, and two of them disappeared ; 

 but shortly after, the last of the three increased 

 considerably; and its canal, which was at 

 first so small, soon became as thick as a man's 

 arm, then as his leg, and, at last, thicker than 

 his whole body. We saw distinctly, through 

 this transparent body, the water, which rose 

 up with a kind of spiral motion; and it some- 

 times diminished a little of its thickness, and 

 again resumed the same ; sometimes widen- 

 ing at top, and sometimes at bottom ; exactly 



