A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels ... - Nauticus

clouds, and seemed to forebode much wind. This occasioned as to clew up all our sails, andpresently after six water-spouts were seen. Four rose and spent themselves between us and the land;that is, to the south-west of us, the fifth was without us, the sixth first appeared in the south-west, atthe distance of two or three miles at least from us. Its progressive motion was to the north-east, notin a straight but in a crooked line, and passed within fifty yards of our stern, without our feeling anyof its effects. The diameter of the base of this spout I judged to be about fifty or sixty feet; that is, thesea within this space was much agitated, and foamed up to a great height. From this a tube, or roundbody, was formed, by which the water or air, or both, was carried in a spiral stream up to the clouds.Some of our people said they saw a bird in the one near us, which was whirled round like the fly of ajack, as it was carried upwards. During the time these spouts lasted, we had now and then light puffsof wind from all points of the compass, with some few slight showers of rain, which generally fell inlarge drops; and the weather continued thick and hazy for some hours after, with variable lightbreezes of wind. At length the wind fixed in its old point, and the sky resumed its former serenity.Some of these spouts appeared at times to be stationary; and at other times to have a quick but veryunequal progressive motion, and always in a crooked line, sometimes one way and sometimesanother; so that, once or twice, we observed them to cross one another. From the ascending motionof the bird, and several other circumstances, it was very plain to us that these spouts were caused bywhirlwinds, and that the water in them was violently hurried upwards, and did not descend from theclouds as I have heard some assert. The first appearance of them is by the violent agitation and risingup of the water; and, presently after, you see a round column or tube forming from the clouds above,which apparently descends till it joins the agitated water below. I say apparently, because I believe itnot to be so in reality, but that the tube is already formed from the agitated water below, andascends, though at first it is either too small or too thin to be seen. When the tube is formed, orbecomes visible, its apparent diameter increaseth till it is pretty large; after that it decreaseth, and atlast it breaks or becomes invisible towards the lower part. Soon after the sea below resumes itsnatural state, and the tube is drawn, by little and little, up to the clouds, where it is dissipated. Thesame tube would sometimes have a vertical, and sometimes a crooked or inclined direction. Themost rational account I have read of water-spouts, is in Mr Falconer's Marine Dictionary, which ischiefly collected from the philosophical writings of the ingenious Dr Franklin. I have been told thatthe firing of a gun will dissipate them; and I am very sorry I did not try the experiment, as we werenear enough, and had a gun ready for the purpose; but as soon as the danger was past, I thought nomore about it, being too attentive in viewing these extraordinary meteors At the time this happened,the barometer stood at 29, 75, and the thermometer at 56.[1][1] "This afternoon we had an opportunity of observing, in as complete a manner as couldbe wished, one of the most curious, and perhaps the most extraordinary and powerful, ofNature's productions. The forenoon had been in general pretty clear, but subject to heavysqualls of wind, and some flying clouds, which were very black and heavy, and movedwith great velocity from the S.W. towards the N.E., (the direction of the wind.) About fouro'clock in the afternoon it became calm, and the heavens were almost covered with veryblack clouds, particularly towards the W. and N.W., and presently after we saw several taillikeappearances, descending from the clouds in that quarter: These appearances werewhiter than the clouds they hung from, which made them very conspicuous, and theyincreased gradually in length, until they extended, as near as I could judge, about one-sixthpart of the distance between the clouds and the surface of the sea. About this time, thewater under them began to be violently agitated, and lifted up with a whirling motiontowards the impending part of the cloud, which, on account of a motion they all had thecontrary way to that the wind had blown, was not directly over it, but a little towards thesouth-west. As the water rose, the end of the cloud descended, and in a little time theyjoined; after which the water appeared to me to ascend out of the sea into the cloud, withgreat velocity. I think that none of these spouts, as they are usually called, continued entiremore than ten minutes; perhaps not quite so long. I saw four complete at one time; but therewere great numbers which began to form, and were dispersed by what cause I know not,before the cloud and water joined. One of them came, I was told, within thirty or fortyyards of the ship, which lay becalmed; but I was then below looking at the barometer;when I got upon deck, it was about 100 fathoms from her. It is impossible to say what