1773.
May.
seen fluttering on the surface of the sea, or sitting on it, or diving to considerable distances with amazing agility. They seemed exactly the same which we had seen on the 29th of January and the 8th of February, in the latitude of 48° S, when we were in search of M. Kerguelen's Islands.
In the afternoon, about four o'clock, we were nearly opposite Cape Stephens, and had little or no wind. We observed thick clouds to the S.W. about that time, and saw that it rained on all the southern parts of that cape. On a sudden a whitish spot appeared on the sea in that quarter, and a column arose out of it, looking like a glass tube; another seemed to come down from the clouds to meet this, and they made a coalition, forming what is commonly called a water-spout. A little while after we took notice of three other columns, which were formed in the same manner as the first. The nearest of all these was about three miles distant, and its apparent diameter, as far as we could guess, might be about seventy fathom at the base. We found our thermometer at 56½ when this phænomenon first took its rise. 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 andyellowish
