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.