THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS CURRENTS. 



457 



immediately after sunrise like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun. His rays 

 shining threw them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our 

 people now became desperate ; the Greeks shrieked out and said it was the day of judg- 

 ment ; Ismael pronounced it to be hell ; and the Turcorories, that the world was on fire/' 

 The procession of tall columns of dust, the upper end seeming to vanish off, or puff away 

 like light smoke, and the lower apparently touching the earth, is not unusual on the 

 large plains of New South Wales, in dry weather. They move in a perpendicular position, 

 quietly and majestically gliding along one after another, but really so fast that the fleetest 

 horse is unable to keep pace with them. According to Mrs. Meredith, when they are 

 crossing a brook, the lower portion of the dust is lost sight of, and a considerable agitation 

 disturbs the water, but immediately on landing the same appearance is resumed. " As 

 some vanish," she remarks, " others imperceptibly arise and join the giant waltz ; and 

 when I first observed this most singular display, I amused myself by fancying them a new 

 species of genii relaxing from their more laborious avocations, and having a sedate and 

 stately dance all to themselves. When the dance ends, these dusty performers always 

 appear to sit down among the neighbouring hills." To the same class with these rotating 

 and progressing pillars of sand, that singular phenomenon called the waterspout clearly 



Waterspout. 



belongs, a whirlwind raising into a columnar mass the waters of the sea, and causing 

 the aqueous vapours in the atmosphere to assume the same form, the two frequently 

 uniting, the whole presenting a magnificent spectacle. 



The Greeks applied the term Prester to the waterspout, which signifies a fiery fluid, 

 from its appearance being generally accompanied with flashes of lightning, and a 

 sulphureous smell, showing the activity of the electrical principle in the air. Lucretius 

 refers to it in the following terms : 



" Henee, with much ease, the meteor may we trace 

 Term'd, from its essence, Prester by the Greeks, 

 That oft from heaven wide hovers o'er the deep. 

 Like a vast column, gradual from the skies, 

 Prone o'er the waves, descends it ; the vex'd tide 



