tained, as I intend to send you a copy of it by some other opportunity, for your perusal. I imagine you will find all the appearances you saw, accounted for by my hypothesis. I thank you for communicating the account of them. At present I would only say, that the opinion of winds being generated in clouds by fermentation is new to me, and I am unacquainted with the facts on which it is founded. I likewise find it difficult to conceive of winds confined in the body of clouds, which I imagine have little more solidity than the fogs on the earth's surface. The objection from the freshness of rain-water is a strong one; but I think I have answered it in the letter above mentioned, to which I must beg leave at present to refer you.

Extracts from Dampier's Voyages, relating to WaterSpouts.

READ AT THE ROYAL SOCIETY, DECEMBER 16TH, 1756.

"A SPOUT is a small ragged piece or part of a cloud, hanging down about a yard seemingly, from the blackest part thereof. Commonly it hangs down sloping from thence, or sometimes appearing with a small bending, or elbow, in the middle. I never saw any hang perpendicularly down. It is small at the lower end, seeming no bigger than one's arm, but still fuller towards the cloud from whence it proceeds.

"When the surface of the sea begins to work, you shall see the water for about one hundred paces in circumference, foam and move gently round, till the whirling motion increases; and then it flies upwards in a pillar, about one hundred paces in compass at the bottom, but gradually lessening upwards, to the smallness

of the spout itself, through which the rising sea-water seems to be conveyed into the clouds. This visibly appears by the clouds increasing in bulk and blackness. Then you shall presently see the cloud drive along, though before it seemed to be without any motion; the spout also keeping the same course with the cloud, and still sucking up the water as it goes along; and they make a wind as they go. Thus it continues for half an hour, more or less, until the sucking is spent, and then, breaking off, all the water which was below the spout, or pendulous piece of cloud, falls down again into the sea, making a great noise with its falling and clashing motion in the sea.

"It is very dangerous for a ship to be under a spout when it breaks; therefore we always endeavour to shun it, by keeping at a distance, if possibly we can. But, for want of wind to carry us away, we are often in great fear and danger; for it is usually calm when spouts are at work, except only just where they are. Therefore men at sea, when they see a spout coming, and know not how to avoid it, do sometimes fire shot out of their great guns into it, to give it air or vent, that so it may break; but I did never hear that it proved to be of any benefit.

"And, now we are on this subject, I think it not amiss to give you an account of an accident that happened to a ship once on the coast of Guinea, some time in or about the year 1674. One Captain Records, of London, bound for the coast of Guinea, in a ship of three hundred tons and sixteen guns, called The Blessing, when he came into latitude seven or eight degrees north, he saw several spouts, one of which came directly towards the ship, and he, having no wind to get out of the way of the spout, made ready to receive it by furling the sails. It came on very swift, and broke a

little before it reached the ship, making a great noise, and raising the sea round it, as if a great house, or some such thing, had been cast into the sea. The fury of the wind still lasted, and took the ship on the starboard bow with such violence, that it snapt off the bowsprit and fore-mast both at once, and blew the ship all along, ready to overset it; but the ship did presently right again, and the wind whirling round took the ship a second time with the like fury as before, but on the contrary side, and was again like to overset her the other way; the mizzen-mast felt the fury of this second blast, and was snapt short off, as the fore-mast and bowsprit had been before. The mainmast and the main-top-mast received no damage, for the fury of the wind (which was presently over) did not reach them. Three men were in the fore-top when the fore-mast broke, and one on the bowsprit, and fell with them into the sea, but all of them were saved. I had this relation from Mr. John Canby, who was then quartermaster and steward of her; one Abraham Wise was chief mate, and Leonard Jefferies second

mate.

“We are usually much afraid of them, yet this was the only damage that I ever heard done by them. They seem terrible enough, the rather because they come upon you while you lie becalmed, like a log in the sea, and cannot get out of their way. But, though I have seen and been beset by them often, yet the fright was always the greatest of the harm."-Dampier, Vol. I. p. 451.

Account of a Spout on the Coast of New Guinea.

"WE had fair, clear weather, and a fine moderate gale from southeast to east-by-north; but at daybreak

the clouds began to fly, and it lightened very muca in the east-northeast. At sunrising the sky looked very red in the east near the horizon; and there were many black clouds both to the south and north of it. About a quarter of an hour after the sun was up, there was a squall to the windward of us, when, on a sudden, one of our men on the forecastle called out, that he saw something astern, but could not tell what. I looked out for it, and immediately saw a spout beginning to work within a quarter of a mile of us, exactly in the wind; we presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, whirling the water up in a pillar, about six or seven yards high. As yet I could not see any pendulous cloud from whence it might come; and was in hopes it would soon lose its force. In four or five minutes' time, it came within a cable's length of us, and passed away to leeward; and then I saw a long pale stream coming down to the whirling water. This stream was about the bigness of a rainbow. The upper end seemed vastly high, not descending from any dark cloud, and therefore the more strange to me, I never having seen the like before. It passed about a mile to the leeward of us, and then broke. This was but a small spout, and not strong nor lasting; * yet I perceived much wind in it, as it passed by."— Vol. III. p. 223.

Account of another Spout.

"WE saw a spout but a small distance from us. It fell down out of a black cloud that yielded great store

Probably if it had been lasting, a cloud would have been formed above it. These extracts from Dampier seem, in different instances, to favor both opinions, and, therefore, are inserted entire, for the reader's consideration.

of rain, thunder, and lightning. This cloud hovered to the southward of us for the space of three hours, and then drew to the westward a great pace, at which time it was that we saw the spout, which hung fast to the cloud till it broke, and then the cloud whirled about to the southeast, then to the northeast, where, meeting with an island, it spent itself, and so dispersed ; and immediately we had a little of the tail of it, having had none before."- Vol. III. p. 182.

FROM WILLIAM SHERVINGTON TO B. FRANKLIN.

On the Transit of Mercury across the Sun, May 6th, 1753, observed at Antigua.

SIR,

Antigua, 20 June, 1753.

Mr. Benjaman Mecom† having received half a dozen circulating letters from you relating to Mercury's transit over the sun the 6th of last May, he put them into my hands. One would have sufficed for our island, as we are not overburdened with men, who have a taste that way. I send you the result of my observation thereof.

Sunday, May 6th, at 6h. 7m. 51s., I observed the western limb of Mercury to touch the western limb of the Sun; and at 6h. 10m. 37s. he touched the same with his eastern limb, and totally disappeared. Latitude of the place 17° north; longitude, by estimation, 61° 45' west from London.

This was taken by a Grahame's watch, and corrected

A nephew of Dr. Franklin's, who was established as a printer in Antigua.- EDItor.