156 A HISTORY OF 



tonisn aiiother. But omitting these, of which we know little mrr?; 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 Mediter- 

 ranean, 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 heard at a distance, 

 mixed, at the same time, with a hissing noise like that of a serpent 

 shortly after, we perceived a column of this smoke rise up to the 

 clouds, at the same time whirling about with great rapidity. It ap- 

 peared to be as thick as one's finger ; and the former sound still con- 

 tinued. When this disappeared, after lasting for about 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, sti' 1 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, the}' were apparently empty, and of the 

 colour of transparent 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 particular, 

 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. In the be- 

 ginning they were all about as thick as 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 distinct- 

 ly, through this transparent body, the water, which rose up with a 

 kind of spiral motion ; and it sometimes diminished a little of its 

 thickness, and again resumed the same; sometimes widening at top, and 

 ometimes at bottom ; exactly resembling a gut filled with water, press- 

 ed with the fingers to make the fluid rise, or fall ; and I am well con- 

 vinced, that this alteration in the spout was caused by the wind, which 

 pressed the cloud, and impelled it to give up its contents. After somn 

 time, its bulk was so diminished as to be no thicker than a 'nar s arm 



