Page 451
An.1687
Shoals near Celebes. A Tornado and Spout.
The 30th day we had a fresh Land Wind, and steered away South, passing between the 2 Shoals, which we saw the day before. These Shoals lye in lat. 3 d. South, and about 10 leagues from the Island Celebes. Being past them, the Wind died away, and we lay becalmed till the afternoon; Then we had a hard Tornado out of the South West, and towards the evening we saw two or three Spouts, the first I had seen since I came into the East Indies; in the West Indies I had often met with them. A Spout is a small ragged piece, or part of a Cloud, hanging down about a yard, seemingly from the blackest part thereof. Com- monly it hangs down sloping from thence, or sometimes appearing with a small bending, or elbow in the middle. I never saw any hang per- pendicularly down. It is small at the lower end, seemingly no bigger than ones Arm, but 'tis fuller towards the Cloud, from whence it proceeds.
When the surface of the Sea begins to work, you shall see the Water, for about 100 paces in circumference, foam and move gently round till the whirling motion increases: and then it flies upward in a pillar, about 100 paces in compass at the bottom, but lessening gradually upwards to the smallness of the Spout itself, there where it reacheth the lower end of the Spout; through which the rising Sea-water seems to be conveyed into the Clouds. This visibly appears by the Clouds increasing in bulk and blackness. Then you shall presently see the Cloud drive along, al- though before it seemed to be without any mo- tion; the Spout also keeping the same course with the Cloud, and still sucking up the Water as it goes along, and they make a Wind as they go. Thus it continues for the space of half an hour, more or less, until the sucking is spent, and then breaking off, all the Water which was below the