But there are two kinds of water-spouts, the first of which, alluded to above, is no other than a thick compressed cloud, reduced to a small space by contrary winds, which, blowing at the same time from many corners, give it a cylindric form, and causes the water to fall by its own weight. The quantity of water is so great, and the fall so sudden and precipitate, that if unfortunately one of these spouts breaks on a vessel, it shatters it to pieces and sinks it in an instant. It is asserted, and possibly with foundation, that these spouts may be broken and destroyed by the commotion which the firing of cannons excites in the air; which answers to the effect of dispersing thunder-clouds by the ringing of bells.
The other kind of water-spout is called a typhon, which many authors have confounded with the hurricane, in speaking of the storms of the Chinese sea, which is in fact subject to both. The typhon does not descend from the clouds, but rises up from the sea with great violence. By whirlwinds, sands, earth, houses, trees, and animals, are raised in the air, and transported to different parts; but typhons, on the contrary, remain in the same place, and can only have subterraneous fires for their origin; for the sea is then in the greatest agitation, and the air so strongly filled with sulphurous exhalations, that the sky appears covered with a copper-coloured crust, although there are no clouds, and the sun or stars may be seen through the vapour. It is to these subterraneous fires the warmth of the sea of China in winter must be attributed, as these typhons are there very frequent.[H]
[H] See Acta Eud. Lips. Supplementum, vol. 1. p. 405.
Thevenot, in his voyage to the Levant, says, "we saw water-spouts in the Persian gulph, between the islands Quesomo, Lareca, and Ormutz. I think few people have considered water-spouts with so much attention as I have done. I shall mention my remarks with all possible simplicity, in order to render them plain and easy to be comprehended.
"The first that we saw appeared on the northern coast, between us and the island Quesomo, about a gun-shot from the ship: we directly perceived the water boiled on the surface of the sea, and was raised about a foot: it was whitish, and the top appeared like a thick black smoke, so that it properly resembled some burning straw, which only smoked. It made a noise like a torrent that runs with rapidity into a deep valley. This noise was mixed with another, similar to the hissing of serpents: a little afterwards we perceived something like a dark pipe, which resembled smoke ascending towards the clouds, turning round with great velocity: this appeared about the thickness of my finger, and the same noise still continued. After this it disappeared, having remained somewhat less than a quarter of an hour. This over, we perceived another on the south side, which began in the same manner as the preceding: directly after a third made its appearance on the west, and then a fourth by its side. The farthest of them was not more than a musket-shot from us. They all appeared like burning heaps of straw, a foot and a half or two feet high, and were attended with the same noise as the first. We afterwards saw three pipes or canals descending from the clouds to the water. They were broad at the top and lessened downwards, something in the shape of a trumpet, or as the paps of an animal, drawn perpendicularly down by a heavy weight. These canals appeared of a darkish white, occasioned, as I think, by the waters which were in them; for apparently they were formed before the water entered, as when they were empty they were no longer to be seen, like as a clear glass tube placed at some distance before our eyes, is not perceptible if it is not filled with some coloured liquor. These pipes were not strait but crooked in some places; they were not even perpendicular, but from the clouds, where they were joined, to the parts which drew in the water, they were very much bent; and what is more particular, the cloud, to which the second of the three was fastened, having been driven by the wind, this pipe followed it without breaking or quitting the place where it drew in the water, and passing behind the first, they had for some time the form of St. Andrew's cross. At the beginning neither of them was more than an inch in thickness, excepting just at the top, but afterwards the first of the three increased considerably. The two others scarcely remained longer than that which we saw on the north side. The second, on the south side, remained about a quarter of an hour, but the first on that side remained longer, and gave us some apprehensions. At first it was not bigger than my finger, afterwards it swelled as thick as my arm, then as my leg, and at last as the trunk of a large tree, which a man might encompass with both his arms. We distinctly perceived water through this transparent body, which ascended in a serpentine manner. Sometimes it diminished in size at the top, and sometimes at the bottom, then it exactly resembled a tube with some fluid matter pressed with the fingers, either above to make this liquor descend, or at bottom to cause it to ascend; and I am persuaded that it was the violence of the wind which caused these changes, pressing the pipe in a similar manner. After this it diminished less than my arm, then returned as large as my thigh, and then again became very small; at last I saw the water that was raised from the surface began to lower, and the end of the pipe divided from it, when, by the change of light from a cloud, it was lost to our sight; I continued, however, to observe whether it returned, because I had remarked that the pipe of the second had appeared to be broken in the middle, and directly after we saw it whole. This we found was occasioned by the light which hid the half from us, but the last we saw no more.
"These water-spouts are very dangerous, for if they fall on a vessel they entangle in the sails so much that sometimes they raise it up, and afterwards let it fall with such violence as to sink it; at least if they do not lift the vessel up, they tear all the sails, or let the water they contain fall on it, and which often sinks it to the bottom. There cannot be the least doubt but it is by similar accidents that many ships, of which we have heard no accounts, have been lost, since there are but few examples of those that we have known, from certainty, to have perished in this manner."
I suspect there are many optical illusions in the above account, but I have recounted them as related, in order that we might compare them with those of other travellers. The following description is by M. Gentil, in his voyage round the world. "At eleven o'clock in the morning, the air being filled with clouds, we perceived about our vessel, at a quarter of a mile distant, six water-spouts, which made a noise similar to that of water flowing in subterraneous canals, and increased until it resembled the whistling which an impetuous wind makes among the cordage of a ship. We at first observed the water to boil up about a foot and a half above the surface. Above this boiling there appeared a mixed or rather a thick smoke, which formed a kind of canal, that ascended to the clouds. These canals inclined according as the wind moved the clouds to which they were attached, and in spite of the wind's impulsion they not only adhered to them, but even lengthened and shortened themselves in proportion as the clouds rose higher or lower in the atmosphere.
"These phenomena terrified us greatly, and our sailors, instead of being bolder, fomented their fears by the dismal tales they told each other. If these spouts, said they, fall on our vessel, they will lift her up, and then she will sink by the violence of her fall. Others contended in a decisive tone, that they would not raise the vessel up, but if they met it in their course, being full of water, the ship would break the communication they had with the sea, and the whole body of the water would fall perpendicularly on the deck of the vessel and split her to pieces.
"To prevent this misfortune the cannon was loaded, the sailors pretending the report of a cannon, by agitating the air, dissipated these phenomena; but we had no need of having recourse to this remedy, for when they had run about ten minutes about the ship, some at a quarter of a league, others at a less distance, we perceived the canals to grow narrower by degrees, till they got loose from the surface of the sea and then dissipated."
It appears from the description given by these two travellers, that water-spouts are produced, at least in part, by the action of a fire or smoke which rises from the bottom of the sea with great force, and that they are quite different from those produced by contrary winds.