WATER SPOUT. 
its respective canal, mounting up in the 
clouds; and spreading, where it touched 
the cloud, like the mouth of a trumpet ; 
making a figure, to express it intelligibly, 
as if the tail of an animal was pulled at one 
end by a weight. These canals were of a 
whitish colour, and so tinged, as I suppose, 
by the water which was contained in them ; 
for, previous to this, they were apparently 
empty, and of the colour of transparent 
glass. These canals were not straight, but 
bent in some parts, and far from being per- 
pendicular, but rising in their clouds with a 
very inclined ascent. But what is very 
particular, the cloud to which one of them 
was pointed happening to be driven by the 
wind, the spout still continued to follow its 
motion without being broken ; and passing 
behind one of the oihers, the spouts crossed 
each other, in the form of a St. Andrewf’s 
cross. Ill the beginning they were all about 
as thick as one’s finger, except at the lop, 
where they were broader, and two of them 
disappeared; but shoitly after the last of 
the three increased considerably, and its 
canal, which was at first so small, soon be- 
came as thick as a man’s arm, then as his 
leg, and at last thicker than his whole body. 
We saw distinctly, through this transparent 
body, the water, which rose up with a kind 
of spiral motion ; and it sometimes dimi- 
nished a little of its thickness, and again re- 
sumed the same ; sometimes widening at 
top, and sometimes at bottom ; exactly re- 
sembling a gut filled with water, pressed 
with the fingers, to make the fluid rise or 
fall; and T am well convinced that this al- 
teration in the spout was caused by the 
wind, which pressed the cloud, and com- 
pelled it to give up its contents. After 
some time its bulk was so diminished as to 
be no thicker than a man’s arm again, and 
thus swelling and diminishing, it at last be- 
came very small. In the end, I observed 
the sea which was raised about it to resume 
its level by degrees, and the end of the ca- 
nal that touched it to become as small as if 
it had been tied round with a cord; and 
this continued till the light, striking through 
the cloud, took away the view. I still, 
however, continued to look, expecting that 
its parts would join again, as I had before 
seen in one of the others, in which the spout 
was more than once broken, and yet again 
came together; but I was disappointed, for 
the spout appeared no more.” 
In the Philosophical Transactions we 
have descriptions of several; their effects, 
in some instances, are probably much ex- 
aggerated. One at Topsham is said to have 
cut down an apple-tree, several inches in 
diameter : another, we are told, seemed to 
be produced by a concourse of winds, turn- 
ing like a screw, the clouds dropping down 
into it : it threw trees and branches about 
with a gyratory raotiorf. See Piiilosophical 
Transactions, vol. xxii. and xxiii. One in 
Deeping Fen, Lincolnshire, was first seen 
moving across the land and water of the 
fen : it raised the dust, broke some gates, 
and destroyed a field of turnips : it va- 
nished with an appearance of fire. Dr. 
Franklin supposes that a vacuum is made by 
the rotatory motion of the ascending air, 
as when water is running througu a funnel, 
and that the water of the sea is thus raised. 
But Dr. Young says, no such cause could 
do more than produce a slight rarefaction 
of the air, much less raise the water to the 
height of thirty or forty feet, or more. 
Professor Wolke describes a water spout 
which passed immediately over the ship in 
which he was sailing, in the Gulph of Fin- 
land ; it appeared (o be twenty-five feet in 
diameter, consisting of drops about the size 
of cherries. The sea was agitated round its 
base, througb a space of about one hundred 
and thirty feet in diameter. One of the 
latest accounts of the phenomenon of a wa- 
ter spout is that read to the Royal Society 
in the year 1803, from a letter written to 
Sir Joseph Banks, by Captain Ricketts, of 
the royal navy ; 
■“ In the month of July, 1800, Captain 
Ricketts was called on deck, on account 
of the rapid approach of a water-spout, 
among the Lipari islands. It had the ap- 
pearance of a viscid fluid, tapering in its 
descent, proceeding from the cloud to Join 
the sea. It moved at the rate of aboilt two 
miles an hour, with a loud sound of rain. 
It passed the stern of the ship, and wetted 
the after-part of the main-sail : hence it was 
inferred, that water-spouts are not continu- 
ous columns' of water; and subsequent ob- 
servations confirmed the opinion. In No- 
vember, 1801, about twenty miles from 
Trieste, a water-spout was seen eight miles 
to the south ; round its lower extremity was 
a mist, about twelve feet high, somewhat 
of the form of an Ionian capital, with very 
large volutes, the spout resting obliquely 
on its crown. At some distance from this 
spout the sea began to be agitated, and a 
mist rose to the heiglit of about four feet : 
then a projection descended from the black 
cloud that was impending, and met the 
ascending mist about twenty feet above the 
