268 WATEKSPOUTS. 



thin transparent tube, CE, which reaches the water, where the smoke-like 

 commotion still prevails. Mr. Maxwell observed, at this time, in the upper 

 part of the tube, a very curious motion. 



This singular fact, of the existence of a transparent tube, confirms a 

 description, by Mr, Alexander Stewart, of Waterspouts which he saw in 

 the Mediterranean, in 1701. " It was observable of all of them, but chiefly 

 of the large pillar, that toward the end it began to appear like a hollow 

 canal, only black in the borders, but white in the middle ; and though at 

 first it was altogether black and opaque, yet one could very distinctly per- 

 ceive the sea-water to fly up along the middle of this canal as stnoke does up 

 a chimney, and that with great swiftness, and a very perceptible motion ; 

 and then, soon after, the spout or canal burst in the middle, and dis- 

 appeared by little and little ; the boiling up and the pillar-Hke form of the 

 sea-water continuing always the last, even for some considerable time after 

 the spout disappeared, and perhaps till the spout appeared again, or re- 

 formed itself, which it commonly did in the same place as before, break- 

 ing and forming itself again several times in a quarter or half an hour." — 

 Philosophical Transactions, 1702. 



Admiral WiUiam H. Smyth, in his interesting volume on Sicily and the 

 Sicilian Islands, remarks that "Waterspouts and various singular meteoric 

 phenomena occur in that neighbourhood. Among the latter, on a warm, 

 ' cloudy, and hazy day, the 19th of March, 1814, it began to rain in large 

 drops, that appeared muddy, and they deposited a very minute sand of a 

 yellowish red colour. The wind, on the day before, had been blowing 

 strongly from the S.S.W. to the N.B. ; and, during the time the rain fell, 

 was from the S.W., which leads to the supposition that it was transported 

 from the deserts of Africa." This remark accords with a number of others 

 on the sand from the Sahara or Desert, which is carried by the wind over 

 the Atlantic, to an almost incredible distance from the Western coast.* 



(215.) To the preceding descriptions we annex another, as given by the 

 Honourable Captain Napier, E.N., F.E.S.E., in 1814. 



" On the 6th of September, 1814, in lat. 30° 47' N., long. 62° 40' W. 

 (about 140 miles to the S.B. of the Bermudas), at P 30"" p.m., the wind 

 being variable between W.N. W. and N.N.E., the ship steering S.E., an 

 extraordinary sort of whirlwind was observed to form about 3 cables' 

 lengths from the starboard bow of H.M.S. Erne. It carried the water up 

 along with it in a cylindrical form, in diameter, to appearance, like that of 

 a water-butt, gradually rising in height, increasing in bulk, advancing in a 

 Southerly direction, and, when at the distance of a mile from the ship, it 

 continued stationary for several minutes, boiling and foaming at the base, 

 discharging an immense column of water, with a rushing or hissing noise, 

 into the overhanging clouds ; turning itself with a quick spiral motion, 

 constantly bending and straightening, according as it was affected by the 

 variable winds, which now prevailed from all points of the compass. It 

 next returned to the Northward, in direct opposition to the then prevail- 

 ing wind, and right upon the ship's starboard beam, whose course was 



• Colonel Reid, in his "Law of Storms," gives a chapter (xi.) oa " Waterspouts and 

 Whirlwinds," with several beautiful figures of the same. 



