Strong corroboration of these inferences as to the electrical produc tion of waterspouts, may be found in their observed production in the sequence of the phenomena which attended the submarine volcanic eruption by which the temporary island, Sabrina, was elevated from the bed of the ocean, near St. Michael's, in the Azores, from the 9th to the 12th of June, 1811; the important bearing of which on this subject seems, hitherto, to have escaped attention. Captain Pillard, R.N., who witnessed the eruption, describes (under the name of smoke, like all other observers of volcanic eruptions until Mr. Poulett Scrope had shown it to be condensing steam), the immense steam-cloud issuing from the sea, which constituted a part of the eruption, together with, and through which the columns of stones, cinders, and ashes—the com minuted lavas—were projected in rapid succession. these bursts, the most vivid flashes of lightning continually issued from the densest part of the volcano ; and the cloud of smoke [steam] now ascending to an altitude much above the highest point to which the ashes were projected, rolled off in large masses of fleecy clouds gradu ally expanding themselves before the wind in a direction nearly horizontal, and drawing up to them [and being drawn down into] a quantity of waterspouts, which formed a most beautiful and striking addition to the general appearance of the scene." These, according to
the particulars stated (` Phil. Trans.,' 1812) must have been from three or four hundred to eight or nine hundred feet in height or length.
We have here, palpably, all the elements for the electrical causation of waterspouts—the immense evolution of electricity [VOLCANOES, col. G60], the charged surface of cloud, the dielectric atmosphere, the sur face of sea below—and the actual production accordingly, of the phe nomena sought to be accounted for. Much more might be said on this branch of the subject, which indeed i.s one of great extent and complication, the explanation now suggested a general nature only.
Much valuable information respecting waterspouts was introduced by the late Mr. Piddington, into part 5 of his ' Sailor's Horn-Book for the Law of Storms,' including a view of the contents of M. Peltier's work entitled Observations et recherches experimentales our les causes qui concourent h la formation des Trombes,' under which appellation whirlwinds and waterspouts are identified by the author ; being applied, indeed, to them indifferently and convertibly, by French writers in general.
To a portion of this part of the subject we shall return when con sidering cyclones and whirlwinds in the article WIND.