At The Time When This Happened, The
Barometer Stood At 29,75 Inches, And The Thermometer At 56 Deg..
The whole
of this passed within the space of an hour, or thereabouts; for at
five o'clock a small breeze
Of wind sprung up in the south-east
quarter, and dispersed every appearance of this kind, although the
black clouds remained until about ten, when the wind veered round to
the W.S.W., and settled there in a moderate steady gale, and the
weather cleared up." - W.
"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.
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