WATER-SPOUTS ON THE COAST OF N. S. WALES. 137 



As evidence of the character of the small vortices, I may mention 

 some facts that have come under my notice before offering any 

 explanation as to the origin and character of water-spouts. 



Some years since, the driver of the mail coach from Goodooga 

 to Walgett, in this colony, was very much surprised to find the 

 road for a quarter of a mile alive with fish floundering about; the 

 fish were such as are found in the swamps and tanks of the district. 

 The ground also was very wet and the fish numerous and lively, 

 but the origin of them was a mystery; a wider experience said 

 that evidently a tornado had passed over a swamp or tank and 

 carried up the water and the fish with it; there was no other 

 possible source from which the fish could have come, unless they 

 were carried from the river. 



Another instance : In a heavy rain storm, with thunder and 

 lightning, on September 21st, 1888, on a station called "Gnalta," 

 west of the Darling River, and one hundred miles north-west of 

 Wilcannia, the rain fell in torrents, and after it was over three 

 fish were discovered in one of the open iron tanks which was kept 

 for watering the garden and usually supplied with water from a 

 well. The whole country was at the time suffering from a very 

 serious drought, and the Darling River, distant more than one 

 hundred miles, was the nearest possible source from which the 

 fish could come. 



Another instance : The Burrangong Argus reported that on 

 January 24th, 1881, a number of small fish were found in the 

 bush after a heavy rain storm. The creeks in the neighbourhood 

 were all dry, and the only water-hole was much lower down, so 

 that the fish could not have come from there, and they must have 

 been deposited in the bush by the heavy rain, the storm having 

 taken them out of some permanent water-hole. 



FIRE FROM A TORNADO. 



An interesting proof of the velocity of the wind in a tornado 

 was given to me by Mr. Richard Hodnett of Carrington Park, 

 fifteen miles east from Bourke on the north side of the river, who 



