Professor Wolke describes a water spout which passed immediately over the ship in which he was sailing, in the Gulph of Finland ; it appeared to be twenty-five feet in diameter, consisting of drops about the size of, cherries. The sea was agitats ed round its base, through a space of about one hundred and thirty feet in dia meter. One of the latest accounts of the ,phenomenon of a water-spout is that read to the Royal Society in the year 1803, from a letter written to Sir Joseph Banks, by Captain Ricketts, of the royal navy : " In the month of July, 1800, Captain Ricketts was called on deck, on account of the rapid approach of a water-spout, among the Lipari islands. It had the ap pearance, of a viscid fluid, tapering in its descent, proceeding from the cloud to join the sea. It moved at the rate of about two miles an hour, with a loud souud of rain. It passed the stern of the ship, and wetted the after-part of the main-sail: hence it was inferred, that water-spouts are not continuous columns of water ; and subsequent observations confirmed the opinion. In November, 1801, about twenty,miles from Trieste, a water-spout was seen eight miles to the south ; round its lower extremity was a mist, about twelve feet high, somewhat of the form of an Ionian capital, with very large volutes, the spout resting obliquely on its crown. At some distance from
this spout the sea began to be agitated, and a mist rose to the height of about four feet : then a projection descended from the black cloud that was impending, and met the ascending mist about twenty feet above the sea : the last ten yards of the distance were described w ith ve ry great rapidity. A cloud of a light co lour appeared to ascend in this spout something like quicksilver in a tube. The first spout then snapped at about one-third of its height, the inferior part subsiding gradually, and the superior curling upwards. Several other projec tions from the cloud appeared, with cor responding agitations of the water be low, but not always in spots vertically under them : seven spouts in all were formed ; two other projections were re absorbed. Some of the spouts were not only oblique but curved : the ascending cloud moved most rapidly in those which were vertical; they lasted from three to five minutes, and their dissipation was attended by no fall of rain.