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E turn back now from the atmospheric to the aqueous ocean. Yet so intimate is the connection between the two, that we shall find it impossible to avoid occasional reference to the former.

Our present subject, waterspouts, obliges us to recur for a little to the atmosphere, which we dismissed, or attempted to dismiss, in the last chapter.

There is no doubt that waterspouts are to a great extent, if not altogether, due to the presence of electricity in the air. When the clouds have been raging for some time in the skies of tropical regions, rendering the darkness bright, and the air tremulous with their dread artillery, they seem to grow unusually thirsty; the ordinary means of water-supply through the atmosphere do not appear to be sufficient for the demand, or war-tax in the shape of water-duty, that is levied on nature. The clouds