100 Hon. Captain Napier on Water-Spouts. 
the hatches battened down and scuppers open. The cylinder 
or spout coming in contact with the masts and rigging, would 
naturally be destroyed ; and the air rushing in instantaneously 
to restore the equilibrium, the torrent would be thus checked 
in its fall to the mere weight or force of a tropical descent. I 
have heard many reports of ravages committed by these aque- 
ous meteors, but never yet met a person who had actually wit- 
nessed or experienced any such distressing effects. 
Upon comparing the present account with that of Mr Max- 
well’s, in your last Number, illustrated by a very striking repre- 
sentation, it appears that, when completed, the two spouts are 
almost perfectly alike, but originally had derived their first 
formation from different sources. 
The cause of the whirlwind must be the same in all cases. 
Mr Maxwell distinctly states, that at the first formation, 
the black cloud drops from a level surface into a conical form, 
before the disturbance at the surface of the sea is visible. The 
black conical cloud continues to descend till it almost reaches 
the surface of the sea, and the smoke-like appearance at the sur- 
face rises higher and higher, till it forms an union mth the 
cloud from which that spout appeared to be suspended.” 
In this instance, the whirlwind must have commenced and 
been complete, sooner in the region of the clouds than at the 
surface of the sea, and thus attracted and brought down with it 
all those vapours that first came wnthin its influence, meeting in 
its descent a portion of water, of a smoke-like appearance,” 
rising from the sea itself, contained, of course, within the va- 
cuum there more recently completed. 
This appears just as probable as that the whirlwind and spout 
should have commenced, first at the surface of the sea, and then 
risen upwards, as in the other instance ; for it has been seen that 
this spout traversed a considerable distance to the southward, 
before it came in contact with a cloud, which rather drooped 
to meet it.” In both instances, however, the clouds and sea 
were connected by a long column of water, but the latter having 
had its origin at the sea, it increased to a much greater bulk, even 
to the formation of clouds themselves ; whereas the former, hav- 
ing originated aloft, acted merely as a canal or duct, through 
which the clouds discharged themselves into the ocean below. 
