the sea-water to fly up along the middle of this canal, as smoak up a chimney."

And Dr. Mather, describing a whirlwind, says, "a thick dark small cloud arose, with a pillar of light in it, of about eight or ten feet diameter, and passed along the ground in a tract not wider than a street, horribly tearing up trees by the roots, blowing them up in the air like feathers, and throwing up stones of great weight to a considerable height in the air, &c."

These accounts, the one of water-spouts, the other of a whirlwind, seem, in this particular, to agree; what one gentleman describes as a tube, black in the borders, and white in the middle, the other calls a black cloud, with a pillar of light in it; the latter expression has only a little more of the marvellous, but the thing is the same; and it seems not very difficult to understand. When Dr. Stuart's spouts were full charged, that is, when the whirling pipe of air was filled between a a a a and b b b b, Fig. I. with quantities of drops, and vapour torn off from the column W W Fig. II. the

ty ascending lessened, the pipe became more transparent, and the ascending motion visible. For, by inspection of the figure in the opposite page, representing a section of our spout, with the vacuum in the middle, it is plain that if we look at such a hollow pipe in the direction of the arrows, and suppose opaque particles to be equally mixed in the space between the two circular lines, both the part between the arrows a and b, and that beween the arrows c and d, will appear much darker than that between b and c, as there must be many more of those opaque particles in the line of vision across the sides, than across the middle. It is thus that a hair in a microscope evidently appears to be a pipe, the sides shewing darker than the middle. Dr. Mather's whirl was probably filled with dust, the sides were very dark, but the vacuum within rendering the middle more transparent, he calls it a pillar of light.

It was in this more transparent part, between b and c, that Stuart could see the spiral motion of the vapours, whose lines on the nearest and farthest side of the transparent part crossing each other, represented smoak ascending in a chimney; for the quantity being still too great in the line of sight through the sides of the tube, the motion could not be discovered there, and so they represented the solid sides of the chimney.

When the vapours reach in the pipe from the clouds near to the earth, it is no wonder now to those who understand electricity, that flashes of lightning should descend by the spout, as in that of Rome.

But you object, if water may be thus carried into the clouds, why have we not salt rains? The objection

is

is strong and reasonable, and I know not whether I can answer it to your satisfaction. I never heard but of one salt rain, and that was where a spout passed pretty near a ship, so I suppose it to be only the drops thrown off from the spout, by the centrifugal force (as the birds were at Hatfield) when they had been carried so high as to be above, or to be too strongly centrifugal for, the pressure of the concurring winds surrounding it and, indeed, I believe there can be no other kind of salt rain; for it has pleased the goodness of God so to order it, that the particles of air will not attract the particles of salt, though they strongly

attract water.

Hence, though all metals, even gold, may be united with air, and rendered volatile, salt remains fixt in the fire, and no heat can force it up to any considerable height, or oblige the air to hold it. Hence, when salt rises, as it will a little way, into air with water, there is instantly a separation made; the particles of water adhere to the air, and the particles of salt fall down again, as if repelled and forced off from the water by some power in the air; or, as some metals, dissolved in a proper menstruum, will quit the solvent when other matter approaches, and adhere to that, so the water quits the salt, and embraces the air; but air will not embrace the salt, and quit the water, otherwise our rains would indeed be salt, and every tree and plant on the face of the earth be destroyed, with all the animals that depend on them for subsistence. He who hath proportioned and given proper qualities to all things, was not unmindful of this. Let us adore HIM with praise and thanksgiving!

By

By some accounts of seamen, it seems the column of water W W, sometimes falls suddenly; and if it be, as some say, fifteen or twenty yards diameter, it must fall with great force, and they may well fear for their ships. By one account, in the Transactions, of a spout that fell at Colne in Lancashire, one would think the column is sometimes lifted off from the water, and carried over land, and there let fall in a body; but this, I suppose, happens rarely.

Stuart describes his spouts as appearing no bigger than a mast, and sometimes less; but they were seen at a league and a half distance.

I think I formerly read in Dampier, or some other voyager, that a spout, in its progressive motion, went over a ship becalmed, on the coast of Guinea, and first threw her down on one side, carrying away her foremast, then suddenly whipped her up, and threw her down on the other side, carrying away her mizen-mast, and the whole was over in an instant. I suppose the first mischief was done by the fore-side of the whirl, the latter by the hinder-side, their motion being contrary.

I suppose a whirlwind, or spout, may be stationary, when the concurring winds are equal; but if unequal, the whirl acquires a progressive motion, in the direction of the strongest pressure.

When the wind that gives the progressive motion becomes stronger below than above, or above than below, the spout will be bent, and, the cause ceasing, straiten again.

Your queries, towards the end of your paper, appear judicious, and worth considering. At present I

VOL. II.

D

am

am not furnished with facts sufficient to make any pertinent answer to them; and this paper has already a suffficient quantity of conjecture.

Your manner of accommodating the accounts to your hypothesis of descending spouts, is, I own, ingenious, and perhaps that hypothesis may be true. I will consider it farther, but, as yet, I am not satisfied with it, though hereafter I may be.

Here you have my method of accounting for the principal phenomena, which I submit to your candid examination.

And as I now seem to have almost written a book, instead of a letter, you will think it high time I should conclude; which I beg leave to do, with assuring you, that

.

SIR,

ESQ. AT PHILADELPHIA.

Description of a Water-Spout at Antigua.

Read at the Royal Society, June 24, 1756.

New-Brunswick, November 11, 1752.

I AM favoured with your letter of the 2d instant, and shall, with pleasure, comply with your request, in describing (as well as my memory serves me) the wa

* Dr. Mercer. Editor.

ter-spout