this was before the nature, or even the existence, of electricity, as a definite power, had been accurately ascertained; and to prove that this is an error, it is only necessary to quote the description of the prester, as given by Lucretius, and to follow up the quotation with the explanation of his translator, Dr. Good, by which it will abundantly appear that the prester, like the spout of the present day, was regarded as both a sea and land meteor, or in other words as filled with water, and without water; the term being more properly applied to the former, and the latter being correctly regarded and called a mimic, or imitative prester; in reality the fiery whirlwind or hurricane.

The passage we advert to is as follows: lib.

vi. 422.

Quod super est, facul est ex hiis cognoscere rebus, hipnornpas Graiei quos ab re nominitarunt, In mare quâ missei veniant ratione superne.-&c. &c. Hence, with much ease, the meteor may we trace Termed, from its essence, PRESTER by the GREEKS, That oft from heaven wide hovers o'er the deep, Like a vast column, gradual from the skies, Prone o'er the waves, descends it; the vext tide Boiling amain beneath its mighty whirl, And with destruction sure the stoutest ship Threat'ning that dares the boist'rous scene approach. Thus solve th' appearance; that the maniac wind, In cloud tempestuous pent, when unempower'd To burst its bondage, oft the cloud itself Stretches cylindric, like a spiral tube From heaven forced gradual downwards to the deep; As though some viewless hand, its frame transpierced, With outspread palm had thrust it from above. This, when at length, the captived tempest rends, Forth flies it, fiery, o'er the main, and high Boils from its base th' exaggerated tide. For, as the cone descends, from every point A dread tornado lashes it without, In gyre perpetual, through its total fall : Till, ocean gained, the congregated storm Gives its full fury to th' uplifted waves, Tortured and torn, loud howling midst the fray. Oft, too, the whirlwind from the clouds around Fritters some fragments, and itself involves Deep in a cloudy pellicle, and close Mimics the prester, lengthening slow from heaven; Till, earth attained, th' involving web abrupt Bursts, and the whirlwind vomits and the storm. Yet, as on earth the mountains' pointed tops Break oft the texture, tubes like these, at land Far rarer form than o'er the marble main.

The translator's note upon this passage, in exposition of his author, is as follows, and we give it as affording a clear explanation of the nature and properties of this singular meteor:Having discussed the phenomenon of thunder and lightning, he now proceeds to consider those of the water-spout, and the hurricane; and it is truly curious to observe how minutely he concurs with the philosophy of the present day, in regarding them as meteors of a similar nature and origin. Prester, indeed, as our poet informs us, is a Greek word, signifying a fiery or inflammatory intumescence; and such, he asserts, is the essence of which this meteor (the water-spout) consists: whence it is obvious that the term ventus, or wind, applied to it immediately afterwards, is employed generically, to

express an elastic gas or ether, for which Lacretius found no definite expression in his own language, rather than the nature of wind properly so called. It is an igneous or fiery aura, not indeed in the open act of combustion, but composed of the finest and most minute particles of a peculiar species of elementary fire, which, in a more concentrated form, would necessarily become luminous and burning.

'Gassendi, indeed, contends, that the Epicurean prester is not an igneous meteor, but a mere vortex of elastic air. But there can be no doubt of his being mistaken; for Lucretius not only employs a term to which fire, in some modification or other, either elementary or combined, is necessarily attached, but refers us in the opening of the discussion, by way of explawhich, he expressly declares, consist of the very nation, to the constituent particles of lightning, finest and most attenuate fiery atoms.

، Fiery, too, and of the common essence of lightning, is this meteor asserted to be, by the philosophy of the present day. For it is regarded as an electrical phenomenon, as, indeed, is almost every atmospherical meteor, as well as a great variety that are subterraneous. In describing the powers and operation of the thunder-cloud, in note on v. 256 above, I have noticed its wonderful faculty of attracting, with almost instantaneous speed, the lighter and adscititious clouds in its vicinity, as I have also its submission to the still more strongly attractive power of that part of the earth which lies immediately beneath it, in a state of negative electricity, evidenced by its dipping downwards either in ragged and multiform fragments, or, where the film of the cloud is tenser, in more regular and unbroken protuberances. Retaining then these simple facts in our recollection, it will not be difficult to account for the phenomenon of the prester, or water-spout, upon the principles of the electric theory.

، A thunder-cloud, or cloud filled with electric matter, is first noticed to appear at sea in a sky so serene as to be totally destitute of adscititious clouds, and in an atmosphere so dry as to be possessed of very little and impalpable vapor. Such is the general appearance of the horizon on the commencement of the water-spout. In such a situation a thunder-storm cannot be the result, for want of the confederate assistance of additional clouds and vapors: but, from the circumstances enumerated above, a very considerable portion of mutual attraction must take place between this isolated cloud, and the portion of the sea immediately beneath it, more especially if the sea be at this time negatively electrified, or destitute of the electric power of which the cloud has a vast surplus. From this mutual attraction, the water directly under the cloud will become protuberant upwards, rising like a hill towards the cloud above, which, in the phenomenon we are now describing, it always does, and the cloud above will become protuberant downwards, elongating itself towards the elevated portion of water beneath. If, in this action of straining, the texture of the cloud be very slight, it will burst into a thousand fragments, and the electric matter contained within it will

be quietly dissipated, or attracted to the ocean; but, if it be stronger and more viscous, it will continue to stretch without bursting; and, like every other elastic substance, the more it stretches, the narrower will be the projected tube. Such, to the mariner, is the actual apperance of the column of the water-spout, precisely resembling a speaking trumpet, with its base or broader part uppermost. When the mouth of this projected tube touches the rising hillock of water, if the attraction of the negatively electrified ocean be superior, the electric aura, we may naturally suppose, will be drawn downwards, and the empty cloud be totally dissipated; but, as will generally occur in the case of a positive force applied to a negative, if the attraction of the electric cloud prove victorious, it will continue to suck up the rising hillock of water till it is altogether sated, and can hold no more. At this time the cloud must necessarily burst from its own weight and distention, and in proportion to its size, and the deluge of water and electricity it discharges, will be the mischief produced. It is said that it may occasionally be rent, at a distance, by making a violent noise on board the ship in which it is perceived by files, saws, or other discordant instruments; and, certainly, whatever will tend to agitate the air in any considerable degree, affords some prospect of breaking the cloudy film, and thus dispersing the meteor; but the more ordinary method of shooting at it from guns of a large calibre, gives a much stronger, and, indeed, almost certain chance of success; for no mechanical power can agitate the surrounding atmosphere by any means se forcibly as the report of a large cannon; and, if it be loaded with ball, it will give a double prospect of discharging the contents of this tremendous spectacle.'

Upon that part of the description which relates to the mimic prester, Dr. Good observes as follows: Lucretius here alludes to meteors of a similar description, but not quite so tremendous in their effect and is generally supposed to refer to the hurricane,or,as the Greeks termed it, εkvepia; which is equally an electrical phenomenon, and may be regarded as a prester occurring on land, and consequently as an electric cloud filled with elastic air only, or other vapors received from the atmosphere, and not often with water. It is produced in the same manner as the sea-prester, has the same kind of elongated tube reaching towards the negatively electrified portion of the earth by which it is attracted, and is accompanied, previous to its bursting, by a similar tornado of external air. This elongated tube, as well as the substance of the cloud itself, in the time of Shakspeare, was supposed to have its film or fibres condensed and rendered firmer by the operation of the rays of the sun; but there is no necessity for such an idea :

-the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constringed in mass by the almighty sun.

Troilus and Cressida.

We may account for the phenomenon in this manner: that the thirsty cloud, in consequence

of a more elevated position than ordinary in the atmosphere, at the time it commences its attraction with the water below, satiates and distends itself, by means of its proboscis, with absorbed air alone, prior to the actual contact of such proboscis with the hillock of rising water; so that, by the time this elongating spout extends to the attracted hillock, it is totally incapable of containing any thing farther.'

Cavallo supposes that electricity is rather a consequence than a cause of water-spouts; and notices that they sometimes vanish and reappear. Dr. Franklin conceived that a vacuum is made by the rotatory motion of the ascending air, as when water is running through a tunnel, and that the water of the sea is thus raised. But it is justly observed, by Dr. Young, that no such cause as this could do more than produce a sligh: rarefication of the air, much less raise the water to above thirty or forty feet. At the same time the force of the wind thus excited might carry up much water in detached drops, as it is really observed to exist in water-spouts. Dr. Young remarks moreover, in another passage, that the phenomena of water-spouts, if not of electrical origin, appear to have some connexion with electrical causes. A water-spout generally consists of large drops, like a dense rain, much agitated, and descending or ascending with a spiral motion, at the same time that the whole spout is carried along horizontally, accompanied in general by a sound like that of the dashing of waves. Spouts are sometimes, although rarely, observed on shore, but generally in the neighbourhood of water. They are commonly largest above; sometimes two cones project, the one from a cloud, the other from the sea below it, to meet each other, the junction being accompanied by a flash of lightning: and, when the whole spout has exhibited a luminous appearance, it has perhaps served to conduct electricity slowly from the clouds to the earth. Some of these circumstances may be explained by considering the spout as a whirlwind, carrying up drops of water, which it has separated from the surface of the waves; and the remainder may perhaps be deduced from the co-operation of electricity, already existing in a neighbouring cloud.

One of the best accounts of the appearance of the genuine prester is given by Mr. Maxwell in the Edinhurgh Philosophical Journal.

During several voyages to Congo, he frequently witnessed this interesting phenomenon ; and in a drawing in his Journal, from which fig. 1 of our plate METEOROLOGY is copied after the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, he has represented the different states of a water-spout, as they most commonly occur.

At their first formation they appear,' he says, as at A, where the black cloud drops from a level surface into a conical form, before the disturbance at the surface of the sea, as shown at D, is observed. The effect produced at D is like that of a smoking furnace. The black conical cloud now continues to descend, as shown at B, till it almost reaches the surface of the sea, and the smoke-like appearance rises higher and higher till it forms a union with the cloud from which the spout appears to be suspended. In this si

tuation it is said to put on its most terrific appearance to the mariners who have the misfortune to be in its neighbourhood. When the spout begins to disperse it assumes the appearance shown at C. The black cloud generally draws itself up in a ragged form, but leaves a thin transparent tube C E, which reaches to the water where the smoke-like commotion still prevails. Mr. Maxwell observed at this time in the upper part of the tube a very curious motion.'

This fact, of the existence of a transparent tube, confirms Mr. Alexander Stewart's description in the Philosophical Transactions, of the water-spouts which he saw in the Mediterranean in 1701. 'It was observable of all of them,' says he, but chiefly of the large pillar, that towards the end it began to appear like a hollow canal, only black in the borders, but white in the middle; and, though at first it was altogether black and opaque, yet one could very distinctly perceive the sea-water to fly up along the middle of this canal as smoke does up a chimney, and that with great swiftness, and a very perceptible motion; and then, soon after, the spout or canal burst in the middle, and disappeared by little and little; the boiling up and pillar-like form of the sea water continuing always the last, even for some considerable time after the spout disappeared, and perhaps till the spout appeared again, or reformed itself, which it commonly did in the same place as before, breaking and forming itself again several times in a quarter or half an hour.' --Philosophical Transactions 1702, p. 1077.

We copy the following from the Journal of the Royal Institution.

Extract of a letter from William Ricketts, esq. Captain in the Royal Navy, to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. &c. &c.

In the month of July, 1800, captain Ricketts was suddenly called on deck, on account of the rapid approach of a water-spout among the Lipari Islands; it had the appearance of a viscid fluid, tapering in its descent, proceeding from the cloud to join the sea; it moved at the rate of about two miles an hour, with a loud sound of rain; it passed the stern of the ship, and wetted the after-part of the mainsail; hence captain Ricketts concluded that water-spouts were not continuous columns of water; and subsequent observations confirmed the opinion. See plate METEOROLOGY, fig. 2.

In November, 1801, about twenty miles from Trieste, a water-spout was seen eight miles to the southward; round its lower extremity was a mist, about twelve feet high, nearly of the form of an Ionian capital, with very large volutes, the spout resting obliquely on its crown. At some distance from this spout the sea began to be agitated, and a mist rose to the height of about four feet: then a projection descended from the black cloud which was impending, and met the ascending mist about twenty feet above the sea; the last ten yards of the distance were described with a very great rapidity. A cloud of a light color appeared to ascend in this spout like quicksilver in glass tube. The first spout then snapped at about one-third of its height, the inferior part

subsiding gradually, and the superior curling upwards.

Several other projections from the cloud appeared, with corresponding agitations of the water below, but not always in spouts vertically under them: seven spouts in all were formed; two other projections were re-absorbed. Some of the spouts were not only oblique but curved : the ascending cloud moved most rapidly in those which were vertical; they lasted from three to five minutes, and their dissipation was attended by no fall of rain. For some days before, the weather had been very rainy with a south-easterly wind; but no rain had fallen on the day of observation.

The mimic or false prester, with little or no water, is a curious vagary of nature. On the 15th of August, 1617, there was observed by the Rev. Abraham De la Pryme, F. R. S., about two o'clock in the afternoon, a water-spout in the air, at Hatfield, in Yorkshire. 'It was about a mile off, coming directly to the place where I was,' says this gentleman, upon which I took my perspective glasses, and made the best observations on it I could.

6

'The season was very dry, the weather extremely hot, the air very cloudy, and the wind pretty strong, and what was remarkable blowing out of several quarters at the same time, and filling the air with thick and black clouds, in layers; this blowing of the wind soon created a great vortex, gyration, and whirling among the clouds, the centre of which now and then dropt down in the shape of a thick long black tube, commonly called a spout; in which I could distinctly see a motion, like that of a screw, continually drawing upwards, and screwing up as it were whatever it touched. In its progress it moved slowly over a hedge row and grove of young trees, which it made bend like hazel wands, in a circular motion; then, advancing forward to a large barn, in a moment it plucked off all the thatch, and filled the whole air with it. Coming to a very large oak tree, it made it bend like the former, and broke off one of its strongest branches, and, twisting it about, flung it to a very considerable distance off. Then coming near the place where I stood, within 300 yards of me, I beheld with great satisfaction this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it proceeded from a gyration of the clouds, by contrary winds meeting in a point or centre; and, where the greatest condensation and gravitation was, falling down into a large pipe or tube, somewhat like the cochlea Archimedis; and which, in its working or whirling motion, either sucks up water, or destroys ships, &c. Having proceeded about a quarter of a mile farther, it was dissolved by the prevalency of the wind from the east.' Philosophical Transactions 1702.

May the 5th, 1752, a similar phenomenon appeared about seven in the evening, in Deeping-Fen, which, from its effects, seemed to be a water-spout, broken from the clouds. A watery substance, as it seemed, was seen moving on the surface of the earth and water, in Deeping-Fen. It passed along with such violence and rapidity, that it carried every thing before it, such as grass, straw, and stubble; and, in going over the coun