The following are the particulars of the other four waterspouts figured. Fig. 1. Seen from Sooksagur, 35 miles north of Calcutta, on the 27th September, 1855, at 3 30 rad. Estimated length, 1000 feet. Moving south. Dependent from a heavy nimbus at an angle of with the horizon. Upper portion gyrated rapidly. Lasted ten minutes. Did not burst, but was absorbed upwards. Fig. 2, a, 51, c. Seen from Howrali (Calcutta) 24th September, 1856, Eat. Estimated length, 200 feet. Moving north. Depended from a very heavy and stormy looking nimbus, accompanied by vivid lightning. It was greatly agitated, throwing its lower end horizontally to the south, then to the north, at an angle of 45"; lasted about five minutes, and burst into heavy deluging rain.
Fig. 5. Seen from Dum Dum, and from Calcutta, on the 11th of August, 1860, at 5 rad. Estimated length, 1000 feet. Moving south. Very perfect and grand. Depended from a heavy nimbus, unaccom panied by lightning. Gyrated rapidly at the top, dark at the edges and pale blue in the middle. " Divided at the lower end into two smaller columns of 50 or 80 feet in length." Lasted about ten minutes, and burst into heavy rain.
Peg. 6. Seen from Sulked, (Calcutta) on the same day, and at the same hour as the last ; crossed the river llooghly at that place, agitating the water beneath it. Estimated length 800 or 900 feet. Moving north-west. Depended from a heavy nimbus. " Had hanging fringe-clouds, dropping rain, on the south side of the upper part of the column." Gyrated rapidly at the summit of the column. Was bent by a south wind into an elegant double cone resembling the letter S. Lasted about ten minutes. Superior portion absorbed upwards, lower part burst into heavy rain. The figures in the diagram, it must. bo stated, have a mere defined outline, and a greater appearance of solidity, than in the original lithographs.
Major Sherwin, in conclusion, has briefly described and also figured two other waterspouts, both attended by or exhibiting remarkable and instructive phenomena. One of these was seen by him from Darjeeling, in the Himalaya, on the 29th of May, 1852, at neon. This was a warm dry summer day, highly favourable to evaporation ; and the invisible vapour with which the air had become charged was suddenly con densed. by a chilled stream of air descending from the snowy range of the Himalaya, distant 35 miles, into a huge cumulus cloud, at an elevation of 11,000 feet. The first effect of the cold blast was the formation of a small cloud " the size of the hand," which rapidly increased until it extended to the length of 15 miles and the vertical thickness of 5000 feet, or nearly one mile. This body of cloud was driven with great celerity to the south ; and as it approached the mountain Ponglo (distant 114 miles from Darjeeling, and slightly exceeding 10,000 feet above the sea) the lower portion, hitherto nearly horizontal, began throwing down about twenty waterspouts, each 1000 feet in length, which at a rapid pace, increasing in length at the same time, until the whole cloud burst into heavy rain. "The
summit of the mountain," it is observed, "was evidently a point of attraction for the electricity contained in the cloud, as the waterspouts one mile north and south of the central group descended towards the mountain at an angle of 45° with the horizon, and all seemed striving to reach the very summit of the mountain ; and upon reaching it they all burst into h3avy rain. Time of duration, fifteen minutes." The other, and the last waterspout of Major Sherwill's list, was observed and sketched by the Rev. It. A. H. Norman, at Dum Dum, on the 2Sth of October. 1860. It was a group, depending from a heavy nimbus, and consisting of one central and large spout or column, 1500 feet in length, flanked to the caste ard by many smaller ones, some of them 500 feet long, which were absorbed into the main column as fast as they were formed. Between the nimbus and the mass of light haze that covered the horizon, a long slip of blue sky was visible, and the waterspout, where it crossed this, was invisible, appearing as if the whole was divided into two portions. The entire group lasted twenty minutes, and eventually burst into heavy rain. (` Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' Sept. 5,1861, Journal, new series, vol. xxix., pp. 386-375, 418, 419.) The manner in which several of the waterspouts described by Major Shenvill burst into rain on coming into contact with the earth, is strongly indicative of electrical agency, to which, indeed, these pheno mena, with more or less of vague conjecture or more or less of science, have long been attributed, and which may be both cause and con sequence of the mechanical actions to which, in the former part of this article, they have in part been referred. The circumstance just mentioued points to an extension of the cloud towards the earth caused by electrical attraction, between two surfaces (those of the cloud and the earth), one of which has been charged by the other by induction, until, by the contact, a discharge of the electricity takes place, and the particles of water previously charged are at once pre cipitated upon the earth. Under other circumstances, the attractive force of the earth ceasing, or being insufficient, the spouts are absorbed into the cloud again by the force which holds the cloud together. But the column or spout itself, being colourless and transparent, when viewed by transmitted light, would appear to consist, not of cloud, but of water, nearly in the state of rain, and bristling into it ou the discharge taking place. The entire system of cloud and water, and the flooded earth also, being one of excellent conductors of electricity, the discharge is comparatively or altogether silent.