6t> NATURAL HISTORY. 



or south, north-cast or south-west, &c. But there ars 

 tempests called hurricanes, which are still more violent, 

 and in which the winds seem to hlow from all the coasts 

 at once, with a circular motion, which nothing can re- 

 sist. A calm generally precedes these horrible tem- 

 pests ; but in an instant the fuiy of the winds raises 

 waves as high as the clouds, borne parts of the sea 

 cannot be approached, because they are continually in- 

 fested with calms or whirlwind?. The Spaniards have 

 therefore called these places calms and tornados. 



When from a sudden rarefaction, or any other cause, 

 contrary currents of air meet in the same spot, a whirl- 

 wind is produced. Perhaps the same effect takes place 

 in another element, and gulphs or whirlpools may be no 

 other than the eddies of the water formed by the action 

 of two or more opposite currents. The Euripus, so 

 famous for the death of Aristotle, alternately absorbs 

 and rejects the water seven times' in twenty-four hours. 

 This gulph is near the Grecian coast. The Charybdis, 

 which is near the strait of Sicily, rejects and absorbs 

 the water thrice in twenty-four hours. We are uncer- 

 tain, however, with respect to the number of alternate 

 motions in other whirlpools. The greatest known 

 gulph is that of the Norway Sea, which is affirmed to 

 be upwards of twenty leagues in circuit. It absorbs for 

 six hours water, whales, ships, and whatever is near it, 

 and afterwards returns them in six hours. 



A waterspout is no other than a whirlwind at sea. 

 The vacuum which is occasioned by the meeting cur- 

 rents makes the waters rise up in the form of a cylinder, 

 or rather of an inverted cone. In the travels of Mr 

 Thevenot there is a very minute and circumstantial ac- 

 count of the formation of a waterspout, though there 

 is reason to suspect that the relation is not without 

 'some optical deceptions. 



