1773.
May.
yellowish when illuminated by the sun. The column was of a cylindrical form, rather encreasing 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 fathom 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 strait column of a cylindrical form. We could distinctly observe thewater
