40 
Description of Water-Spouts. 
produced solely by the mechanical action of a whirlwind. The 
descriptions which have hitherto been given of this meteor, nu- 
merous and distinct as they have been, do not supply us with suf- 
ficient data for deciding this question. There can be no doubt, 
however, that water-spouts have, in most cases, been accompa- 
nied with electrical phenomena ; and it is equally certain, that 
the spiral and ascending motion of the water has been produced 
by a gyratory movement in the air, arising from the meeting of 
two opposite winds. 
Mr Maxwell, with whom our readers are already acquainted, 
had an opportunity, during several voyages to the Congo, of fre- 
quently witnessing this interesting phenomenon ; and in a draw- 
ing in his Journal, from which Fig. 1. of Plate I. is copied, he 
has represented the different states of a water-spout, as they most 
commonly occur. 
At their first formation, they appear, he says, as at A, where 
the black cloud drops from a level surface into a conical form, 
before the disturbance at the surface of the sea, as shewn at D, 
is observed. The effect produced at D is like that of a smoking 
furnace. The black conical cloud now continues to descend, as 
shewn at B, till it almost reaches the surface of the sea, and the 
smoke-like appearance rises higher and higher, till it forms an 
union with the cloud from which the spout appears to be sus- 
pended. In this situation, it is said to put on its most terrific 
appearance to the mariners who have the misfortune to be in its 
neighbourhood. When the spout begins to disperse, it assumes 
the appearance shewn at C. The black cloud generally draws 
itself up in a ragged form, but leaves a thin transparent tube CE, 
which reaches to the water where the smoke-like commotion still 
prevails. Mr Maxwell observed at this time in the upper part 
of the tube a very curious motion. 
This singular fact, of the existence of a transparent tube, con- 
firms the description which Mr Alexander Stewart has given in 
the Philosophical Transactions, of the water-spouts which he 
saw in the Mediterranean in 1701. 64 It was observable of all 
of them,” says he, 44 but chiefly of the large pillar, that towards 
the end it began to appear like a hollow canal, only black in the 
borders, but white in the middle ; and though at first it was al- 
together black and opaque, yet one could very distinctly per- 
