Chapter VIII: Section VI

_Passage from Dusky Bay to Queen Charlottes Sound, with an Account of some Water Spouts, and of our joining the Adventure._

After leaving Dusky Bay, as hath been already mentioned, I directed my course along shore for Queen Charlotte's Sound, where I expected to find the Adventure. In this passage we met with nothing remarkable, or worthy of notice, till the 17th at four o'clock in the afternoon. Being then about three leagues to the westward of Cape Stephens; having a gentle gale at west by south, and clear weather, the wind at once flattened to a calm, the sky became suddenly obscured by dark dense clouds, and seemed to forebode much wind. This occasioned as to clew up all our sails, and presently after six water-spouts were seen. Four rose and spent themselves between us and the land; that is, to the south-west of us, the fifth was without us, the sixth first appeared in the south-west, at the distance of two or three miles at least from us. Its progressive motion was to the north-east, not in a straight but in a crooked line, and passed within fifty yards of our stern, without our feeling any of its effects. The diameter of the base of this spout I judged to be about fifty or sixty feet; that is, the sea within this space was much agitated, and foamed up to a great height. From this a tube, or round body, was formed, by which the water or air, or both, was carried in a spiral stream up to the clouds. Some of our people said they saw a bird in the one near us, which was whirled round like the fly of a jack, as it was carried upwards. During the time these spouts lasted, we had now and then light puffs of wind from all points of the compass, with some few slight showers of rain, which generally fell in large drops; and the weather continued thick and hazy for some hours after, with variable light breezes of wind. At length the wind fixed in its old point, and the sky resumed its former serenity. Some of these spouts appeared at times to be stationary; and at other times to have a quick but very unequal progressive motion, and always in a crooked line, sometimes one way and sometimes another; so that, once or twice, we observed them to cross one another. From the ascending motion of the bird, and several other circumstances, it was very plain to us that these spouts were caused by whirlwinds, and that the water in them was violently hurried upwards, and did not descend from the clouds as I have heard some assert. The first appearance of them is by the violent agitation and rising up of the water; and, presently after, you see a round column or tube forming from the clouds above, which apparently descends till it joins the agitated water below. I say apparently, because I believe it not to be so in reality, but that the tube is already formed from the agitated water below, and ascends, though at first it is either too small or too thin to be seen. When the tube is formed, or becomes visible, its apparent diameter increaseth till it is pretty large; after that it decreaseth, and at last it breaks or becomes invisible towards the lower part. Soon after the sea below resumes its natural state, and the tube is drawn, by little and little, up to the clouds, where it is dissipated. The same tube would sometimes have a vertical, and sometimes a crooked or inclined direction. The most rational account I have read of water-spouts, is in Mr Falconer's Marine Dictionary, which is chiefly collected from the philosophical writings of the ingenious Dr Franklin. I have been told that the firing of a gun will dissipate them; and I am very sorry I did not try the experiment, as we were near enough, and had a gun ready for the purpose; but as soon as the danger was past, I thought no more about it, being too attentive in viewing these extraordinary meteors At the time this happened, the barometer stood at 29, 75, and the thermometer at 56.[1]

In coming from Cape Farewell to Cape Stephens, I had a better view of the coast than I had when I passed in my former voyage, and observed that about six leagues to the east of the first-mentioned cape, is a spacious bay, which is covered from the sea by a low point of land. This is, I believe, the same that Captain Tasman anchored in on the 18th of December, 1642, and by him called Murderer's Bay, by reason of some of his men being killed by the natives. Blind Bay, so named by me in my former voyage, lies to the S.E. of this, and seems to run a long way inland to the south; the sight, in this direction, not being bounded by any land. The wind having returned to the west, as already mentioned, we resumed our course to the east; and at day-light the next morning (being the 18th,) we appeared off Queen Charlotte's Sound, where we discovered our consort the Adventure, by the signals she made to us; an event which every one felt with an agreeable satisfaction. The fresh westerly wind now died away, and was succeeded by light airs from the S. and S.W., so that we had to work in with our boats a-head towing. In the doing of this we discovered a rock, which we did not see in my former voyage. It lies in the direction of S. by E. 1/2 E., distant four miles from the outermost of the Two Brothers, and in a line with the White Rocks, on with the middle of Long Island. It is just even with the surface of the sea, and hath deep water all round it. At noon, Lieutenant Kemp of the Adventure came on board; from whom I learnt that their ship had been here about six weeks. With the assistance of a light breeze, our boats, and the tides, we at six o'clock in the evening, got to an anchor in Ship Cove, near the Adventure, when Captain Furneaux came on board, and gave me the following account of his proceedings, from the time we parted to my arrival here.

[1] "This afternoon we had an opportunity of observing, in as complete
a manner as could be wished, one of the most curious, and perhaps the
most extraordinary and powerful, of Nature's productions. The forenoon
had been in general pretty clear, but subject to heavy squalls of
wind, and some flying clouds, which were very black and heavy, and
moved with great velocity from the S.W. towards the N.E., (the
direction of the wind.) About four o'clock in the afternoon it became
calm, and the heavens were almost covered with very black clouds,
particularly towards the W. and N.W., and presently after we saw
several tail-like appearances, descending from the clouds in that
quarter: These appearances were whiter than the clouds they hung from,
which made them very conspicuous, and they increased gradually in
length, until they extended, as near as I could judge, about one-sixth
part of the distance between the clouds and the surface of the sea.
About this time, the water under them began to be violently agitated,
and lifted up with a whirling motion towards the impending part of the
cloud, which, on account of a motion they all had the contrary way to
that the wind had blown, was not directly over it, but a little
towards the south-west. As the water rose, the end of the cloud
descended, and in a little time they joined; after which the water
appeared to me to ascend out of the sea into the cloud, with great
velocity. I think that none of these spouts, as they are usually
called, continued entire more than ten minutes; perhaps not quite so
long. I saw four complete at one time; but there were great numbers
which began to form, and were dispersed by what cause I know not,
before the cloud and water joined. One of them came, I was told,
within thirty or forty yards of the ship, which lay becalmed; but I
was then below looking at the barometer; when I got upon deck, it was
about 100 fathoms from her. It is impossible to say what would have
been the consequences if it had gone over her; but I believe they
would have been very dreadful. At the time when this happened, the
barometer stood at 29,75 inches, and the thermometer at 56°. The whole
of this passed within the space of an hour, or thereabouts; for at
five o'clock a small breeze of wind sprung up in the south-east
quarter, and dispersed every appearance of this kind, although the
black clouds remained until about ten, when the wind veered round to
the W.S.W., and settled there in a moderate steady gale, and the
weather cleared up."--W.

"The nature of water-spouts and their causes, being hitherto very
little known, we were extremely attentive to mark every little
circumstance attendant on this appearance. Their base, where the water
of the sea was violently agitated, and rose in a spiral form in
vapours, was a broad spot, which looked bright and yellowish when
illuminated by the sun. The column was of a cylindrical form, rather
increasing in width towards the upper extremity. These columns moved
forward on the surface of the sea, and the clouds not following them
with equal rapidity, they assumed a bent or incurvated shape, and
frequently appeared crossing each other, evidently proceeding in
different directions; from whence we concluded, that it being calm,
each of these water-spouts caused a wind of its own. At last they
broke one after another, being probably too much distended by the
difference between their motion and that of the clouds. In proportion
as the clouds came nearer to us, the sea appeared more and more
covered with short broken waves, and the wind continually veered all
round the compass without fixing in any point. We soon saw a spot on
the sea, within two hundred fathoms of us, in a violent agitation. The
water, in a space of fifty or sixty fathoms, moved towards the centre,
and there rising into vapour, by the force of the whirling motion,
ascended in a spiral form towards the clouds. Some hailstones fell on
board about this time, and the clouds looked exceedingly black and
louring above us. Directly over the whirl-pool, if I may so call the
agitated spot on the sea, a cloud gradually tapered into a long
slender tube, which seemed to descend to meet the rising spiral, and
soon united with it into a short column of a cylindrical form. We
could distinctly observe the water hurled upwards with the greatest
violence in a spiral, and it appeared that it left a hollow space in
the centre; so that we concluded the water only formed a hollow tube,
instead of a solid column. We were strongly confirmed in this belief
by the colour, which was exactly like any hollow glass-tube. After
some time the last water-spout was incurvated and broke like the
others, with this difference, that its disjunction was attended with a
flash of lightning, but no explosion was heard. Our situation during
all this time was very dangerous and alarming; a phenomenon which
carried so much terrific majesty in it, and connected, as it were, the
sea with the clouds, made our oldest mariners uneasy, and at a loss
how to behave; for most of them, though they had viewed water-spouts
at a distance, yet had never been so beset with them as we were; and
all without exception had heard dreadful accounts of their pernicious
effects, when they happened to break over a ship. We prepared, indeed,
for the worst, by clewing up our top-sails; but it was the general
opinion that our masts and yards must have gone to wreck if we had
been drawn into the vortex. It was hinted that firing a gun had
commonly succeeded in breaking water-spouts, by the strong vibration
it causes in the air; and accordingly a four-pounder was ordered to be
got ready, but our people, being, as usual, very dilatory about it,
the danger was past before we could try the experiment. How far
electricity may be considered as the cause of this phenomenon, we
could not determine with any precision; so much however seems certain,
that it has some connection with it, from the flash of lightning,
which was plainly observed at the bursting of the last column. The
whole time, from their first appearance to the dissolution of the
last, was about three quarters of an hour. It was five o'clock when
the latter happened, and the thermometer then stood at fifty-four
degrees, or two and a half degrees lower, than when they began to make
their appearance. The depth of water we had under us was thirty-six
fathom."--G.F.

The description which Mr F. has given, is very similar to the
preceding. Both these gentlemen seem to concur in opinion with Cook,
in maintaining Dr Franklin's theory. Mr Jones, in his Philosophical
Disquisitions, mentions a circumstance which is no less curious in
itself, than strongly demonstrative that the tube, as it has been
called, is formed from below, and ascends towards the clouds, and not
the contrary, as the appearances would indicate. "In the torrid zone,
(says he,) the water-spout is sometimes attended with an effect which
appears supernatural, and will scarcely find credit in this part of
the world; for who will believe that fish should fall from the sky in
a shower of rain? A gentleman of veracity, who spent many years in the
East Indies, declares to his friends that he has been witness to this
several times; but speaks of it with caution, knowing that it will be
thought incredible by those who are not acquainted with the cause. I
have a servant, a native of the West Indies, who assures me he was
once a witness to this fact himself, when small fish, about two or
three inches long, fell in great numbers during a storm of rain. The
spot where this happened was in the island of Jamaica, within about a
mile of the sea. When water is carried with violence from the sea up
the column of a spout, small fish, which are too weak to escape when
the column is forming, are conveyed up to the clouds, and fall from
them afterwards on land, not far distant from the sea." He had before
related an instance of one that passed over the town of Hatfield, in
Yorkshire, filling the air with the thatch it plucked off from the
houses, and rolling strangely together several sheets of lead on the
corner of the church.--E.