THE EARTH. 267 



ported them, being burnt out, they fall back again to the earth 

 with extinguished flame. * Burning spears, which are a pecu- 

 liar 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 iv^-berries, at first, 

 no doubt, raised into the air by tempests in one country, and 

 /ailing 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 surpris. 

 ing 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 ow"n. Those seen by Tournefort, in the 

 Mediterranean, 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 fool 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 Uke that of a serpent ; shortly after we perceived a 

 column of this smoke rise up to the clouds, at the same time whir- 

 ling about with great rapidity. It appeared to be as thick as 

 one's finger ; and the former sound still continued. When this 

 disappeared, after lasting for about eight minutes, upon turning 

 to the oppcite quarter of the sky, we perceived another, which 

 began in the marmer of the former; presently after, a third ap- 

 peared in the west ; and instantly beside it still another arose. 

 The most distant of these three could not be above a niusket- 

 sliot from the ship. They all continued like so many heaps of 

 wet straw set on fire, that continued to smoke, and to make 



* The shooting or falling star is a common phenomenon, but though bo 

 frequently observed, the great distance, and the transient nature of those 

 meteors, added to the entire consumption of their materials, have hither, 

 to frustrated every attempt to ascertain tlieir cause. It is, however, 

 reasonable to suppose, that they are intrinsically the same with the 

 larger meteors, as in most of their properties they perfectly correspond with 

 them. 



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