"The Nature Of Water-Spouts And Their Causes, Being Hitherto Very
Little Known, We Were Extremely Attentive To Mark Every Little
Circumstance Attendant On This Appearance.
Their base, where the water
of the sea was violently agitated, and rose in a spiral form in
vapours, was a broad spot, which looked bright and yellowish when
illuminated by the sun.
The column was of a cylindrical form, rather
increasing in width towards the upper extremity. These columns moved
forward on the surface of the sea, and the clouds not following them
with equal rapidity, they assumed a bent or incurvated shape, and
frequently appeared crossing each other, evidently proceeding in
different directions; from whence we concluded, that it being calm,
each of these water-spouts caused a wind of its own. At last they
broke one after another, being probably too much distended by the
difference between their motion and that of the clouds. In proportion
as the clouds came nearer to us, the sea appeared more and more
covered with short broken waves, and the wind continually veered all
round the compass without fixing in any point. We soon saw a spot on
the sea, within two hundred fathoms of us, in a violent agitation. The
water, in a space of fifty or sixty fathoms, moved towards the centre,
and there rising into vapour, by the force of the whirling motion,
ascended in a spiral form towards the clouds. Some hailstones fell on
board about this time, and the clouds looked exceedingly black and
louring above us. Directly over the whirl-pool, if I may so call the
agitated spot on the sea, a cloud gradually tapered into a long
slender tube, which seemed to descend to meet the rising spiral, and
soon united with it into a short column of a cylindrical form. We
could distinctly observe the water hurled upwards with the greatest
violence in a spiral, and it appeared that it left a hollow space in
the centre; so that we concluded the water only formed a hollow tube,
instead of a solid column. We were strongly confirmed in this belief
by the colour, which was exactly like any hollow glass-tube. After
some time the last water-spout was incurvated and broke like the
others, with this difference, that its disjunction was attended with a
flash of lightning, but no explosion was heard. Our situation during
all this time was very dangerous and alarming; a phenomenon which
carried so much terrific majesty in it, and connected, as it were, the
sea with the clouds, made our oldest mariners uneasy, and at a loss
how to behave; for most of them, though they had viewed water-spouts
at a distance, yet had never been so beset with them as we were; and
all without exception had heard dreadful accounts of their pernicious
effects, when they happened to break over a ship. We prepared, indeed,
for the worst, by clewing up our top-sails; but it was the general
opinion that our masts and yards must have gone to wreck if we had
been drawn into the vortex. It was hinted that firing a gun had
commonly succeeded in breaking water-spouts, by the strong vibration
it causes in the air; and accordingly a four-pounder was ordered to be
got ready, but our people, being, as usual, very dilatory about it,
the danger was past before we could try the experiment. How far
electricity may be considered as the cause of this phenomenon, we
could not determine with any precision; so much however seems certain,
that it has some connection with it, from the flash of lightning,
which was plainly observed at the bursting of the last column. The
whole time, from their first appearance to the dissolution of the
last, was about three quarters of an hour. It was five o'clock when
the latter happened, and the thermometer then stood at fifty-four
degrees, or two and a half degrees lower, than when they began to make
their appearance. The depth of water we had under us was thirty-six
fathom." - G.F.
The description which Mr F. has given, is very similar to the
preceding. Both these gentlemen seem to concur in opinion with Cook,
in maintaining Dr Franklin's theory. Mr Jones, in his Philosophical
Disquisitions, mentions a circumstance which is no less curious in
itself, than strongly demonstrative that the tube, as it has been
called, is formed from below, and ascends towards the clouds, and not
the contrary, as the appearances would indicate. "In the torrid zone,
(says he,) the water-spout is sometimes attended with an effect which
appears supernatural, and will scarcely find credit in this part of
the world; for who will believe that fish should fall from the sky in
a shower of rain? A gentleman of veracity, who spent many years in the
East Indies, declares to his friends that he has been witness to this
several times; but speaks of it with caution, knowing that it will be
thought incredible by those who are not acquainted with the cause. I
have a servant, a native of the West Indies, who assures me he was
once a witness to this fact himself, when small fish, about two or
three inches long, fell in great numbers during a storm of rain. The
spot where this happened was in the island of Jamaica, within about a
mile of the sea. When water is carried with violence from the sea up
the column of a spout, small fish, which are too weak to escape when
the column is forming, are conveyed up to the clouds, and fall from
them afterwards on land, not far distant from the sea." He had before
related an instance of one that passed over the town of Hatfield, in
Yorkshire, filling the air with the thatch it plucked off from the
houses, and rolling strangely together several sheets of lead on the
corner of the church.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 50 of 235
Words from 49897 to 50896
of 239428
