182 
HAYDEN. 
One of the strongest arguments advanced against the theory 
of an ascending current has been the fact that all observa¬ 
tions regarding the rainfall in a waterspout at sea have 
seemed to show that the water was fresh, and never salt, as it 
should be were any water drawn bodily up from the ocean. 
A recent and thoroughly reliable report sent to the United 
States Hydrographic Office from a vessel that passed through 
a waterspout off the Bahamas states positively that the rain¬ 
fall was salt water, and this observation has been confirmed 
by careful inquiry regarding the particulars' of the case. 
Admitting, then, that there is an ascending current of air in 
every cyclone, it does not seem to me that even this is suffi¬ 
cient to disprove the most essential feature of Faye’s theory. 
In fact, if you start with the hypothesis of a descending eddy 
of cold dry air, the natural and normal result would be that 
an ascending spiral should be induced by it as soon as it 
broke through the intervening strata and reached down to 
the lower warm and saturated layers of the atmosphere. That 
there is a descending current of dry air at the center seems 
to be admitted, indeed, by the leading supporters of the 
“ aspiration ” theory, and the principal difference of opinion 
would therefore seem to be as to whether such a descending 
current or eddy be the cause or the effect. The following 
quotation from a late work by Ferrel must be of especial 
interest in this connection: “ The air, charged with moisture, 
in its vertical circulation, in toward the center below, up in 
the interior to a given altitude, and outward above in the 
middle strata, necessarily moves in a path somewhat ellip¬ 
tical ; so that it is being deflected outward above and still 
ascends until at a considerable distance from the center, and 
so there is little condensation of vapor in the central part, 
and the cloud stratum is thin and sometimes entirely want¬ 
ing. And this state is still further promoted by the gyratory 
motion which is confined mostly to the lower and middle 
strata, bringing the air down from above, it may be, down 
pretty low, into the interior central part, where it is carried 
out horizontally on all sides; and the descending air in the 
