132 H. C. RUSSELL. 



WATER-SPOUTS on the COAST op NEW SOUTH WALES. 

 By H. C. Russell, b.a., c.m.g., f.r.s. 

 [With Plates II. -IX.] 



[Bead before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, August 3, 1898. ,] 



Those who have the best opportunity of seeing, tell us that on 

 the coast of New South Wales water-spouts are seen very fre- 

 quently, often in groups of three or four, but the recent display 

 off Eden is by far the grandest that I can find on record, for 

 here occurred in the short space of five hours, fourteen complete 

 water-spouts, and six others more or less incomplete, making 

 twenty in one group, or rather from one great mass of cloud. 



They were seen on May 16, 1898, and came as such displays 

 generally do, quite as a surprise. For on that morning there was 

 nothing remarkable in the antecedent weather ; a low pressure 

 system of slight intensity was at that time over the western 

 districts of Victoria; the isobars were far apart and the winds, if 

 any, were light, but conformed to the isobars. At Eden and 

 generally in South-east Australia, it was fine and calm in the early 

 morning. At 9 a.m. Eden reported a light north-west wind with 

 fine weather and smooth sea, and these conditions were general 

 within a radius of one hundred miles of Eden. Very early in the 

 forenoon a great heavy bank of cloud appeared on the eastern 

 horizon and became more and more dense as it drifted towards 

 the shore. The cloud gradually rose above the horizon, and there 

 was a flickering as if electrical discharges were going on between 

 the cloud and the sea, but there was still nothing to suggest, much 

 less to indicate what was to follow. 



Mr. Pilot Newton saw the first of these water-spouts about 

 11 a.m., it seemed to have come into existence suddenly, and was 

 when first seen about a mile long and as straight as a shaft, and 



