366 Notes upon some remarkable Waterspouts. [No. 4, 



Notes upon some remarkable Waterspouts seen in Bengal between the 

 years 1852 and I860.— By Major Walter Stanhope Sherwill. 

 — Boundary Commissioner, — F. G. S. ; F. B. G. 8. 



During several years in which I have been engaged in recording 

 remarkable atmospherical phenomena in Bengal, I have witnessed 

 the formation and dispersion of several very remarkable waterspouts 

 in and near Calcutta ; of these natural bodies I have made a memo, 

 that describes the dates, appearance, times of duration, size, and 

 direction of translation of these remarkable natural phenomena, in 

 the hope, that it may assist any future enquiries that may be 

 instituted into the nature of the laws regulating these bodies ; for up 

 to the present time no satisfactory theory has been advanced that 

 serves to connect these phenomena with the general law of physics. 



Electricity, doubtless, is the grand mover in the formation, action 

 and dispersion of waterspouts, but its mode of action has not yet 

 been satisfactorily analyzed. These columns are composed of dense 

 masses of vesicular vapours similar to heavy storm, or rain clouds, 

 some portion of the column has generally a violent gyratory motion 

 as well as a motion of translation. Those seen near Calcutta have all 

 been long, slender columns about 1000 feet in length, of a pale blue 

 colour, dark at the edges and pale in the middle ; this appearance in- 

 dicates them to be solid columns of vapour ; a glass rod held up to 

 the light would present the same appearance, as would also a baro- 

 meter glass tube filled with water, or a human hair which is a tube 

 filled with liquid, or any similar object that possesses transparency. 



In many cases waterspouts are accompanied by thunder and light- 

 ning, balls of fire, or great noise, they uproot trees, destroy cultivation, 

 overturn hayricks and houses, exhaust tanks of then" water, drawing 

 up the fish at the same time, showering them down upon dry land 

 and on the tops of houses miles away from the spot from whence taken 

 ■up : but of the waterspouts mentioned in these notes, not one did any 

 harm or the slightest damage, most of them were dissipated into 

 heavy rain, or were absorbed upwards into the clouds without effect- 

 ing any contact with the ground. Only one, that seen over Howrah, 

 was accompanied with lightning and thunder. No one waterspout 



