244 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
eating the violence of the storm over which it hovers, while 
the weather in the neighbourhood of the observer may be 
perfectly fine.* 
This cloud derives interest from its evident connexion 
with that conical or funnel-shaped form of cumulus which 
attends the formation of a waterspout ; and thus gives an indi- 
rect confirmation to the theory that this latter phenomenon is 
a result of electrical action. It seems quite evident that the 
violent action, both on the water and on the atmosphere, which 
is exerted by a waterspout, and the tremendously rapid move- 
ment of the particles, can only result from the presence of a 
force acting with enormous power at a limited distance . 
To afford a raison d'etre for this phenomenon, and for that 
of the sand-pillar, from the ordinary mechanical laws regulating 
large masses of air, seems an obvious impossibility. But it may 
be objected that, if the pyramid cumulus and other cognate cloud 
forms are due to electric action of the air or vapour particles, how 
* A case of this kind occurred ahout the year 1869, and was described by 
me in the “ Intellectual Observer.” 
