plete, and justifies all the metaphors of poets, and their tales of thirsty and deluded travellers.

The most singular quality of this vapour is its power of reflection. When a near observer is a little elevated, as on horseback, he will see trees and other objects reflected as from the surface of a lake. The vapour, when seen at a distance of six or seven miles, appears to lie upon the earth like an opaque mass; and it certainly does not rise many feet above the ground, for I observed that, while the lower part of the town of Abusheher was hid from the view, some of the more elevated buildings, and the tops of a few date-trees, were distinctly visible. Sketches of Persia.

THE WATER-SPOUT

Is thus described by those who have witnessed it. From a dense cloud a cone descends in the form of a trumpet, with the small end downwards; at the same time, the surface of the sea beneath is agitated and whirled round,-the water is converted into vapour, and ascends with a spiral motion, till a junction is effected with the cone proceeding from the cloud; frequently, however, they disperse before the union takes place. Both columns diminish towards their point of contact, where they are not above three or four feet in diameter. In the middle of the cone forming the waterspout there is a white, transparent, tube, which becomes less distinct on approaching it, and it is then discovered to be a vacant space, in which none of the small particles of water ascend; in this, as well as around the outer edges of the water-spout, large drops of rain precipitate themselves. In calm weather, water-spouts generally preserve the perpendicular in their motion, but when acted on by

Navigators have always, and very naturally, entertained great apprehensions of these meteors, and therefore they are seldom approached near enough to enable accurate observations on them to be made. It is probable, however, that in most cases they would not be productive of any serious injury to a vessel of any size. When they appear to be approaching, it is usual to fire one of the ship's guns at them, which, by the concussion of the air, frequently disperses them. But as the water-spout is only moved in space by the prevailing wind, which is equally acting on the ship, they are usually suffered to pass a-head or a-stern by a simple manœuvre; or they disperse before they are near enough to excite any other emotion than curiosity and admiration.

ACCOUNT OF AN AVALANCHE

IN THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE

MOUNTAINS, U.S.

THE NOTCH, as the term implies, is a narrow pass, six miles in length, at the southern end of the White Mountains, the loftiest of which, Mount Washington, is 6234 feet above the level of the sea: but on each side of the pass, they rise only from 1800 to 2000, at an angle of about 45°, forming a valley less than half a mile in width between their basis, and down which the roaring Saco takes its course. The whole extent of their front is furrowed and scarred by the tremendous storm of July, 1826; and the valley, choked up with trees uptorn by the roots, remnants of bridges, buildings, and huge masses of rocks piled upon each other in the greatest disorder, presents what

might be almost imagined as the wreck of nature.

A melancholy and interesting story is connected with this storm, which will, for years to come, be the cause of thousands making a pilgrimage to the White Mountains. I give it as related to me by one, who, though not an eye-witness, was in the immediate vicinity at the time it occurred: it was as follows. A farmer of the name of Willey, with his wife, five children, and two labourers, occupied a house with a small farm, at the upper end of the valley. They were much esteemed for their hospitable attentions to travellers, who, overtaken by night, sought shelter at their hearth, which was the only one in the Notch, their nearest !neighbours being six miles distant. The hills, at that time, were thickly overgrown with forest-trees and shrubs: nor had any thing ever occurred to make them suspicious of the safety of their position, until the descent of a small avalanche, or slide of earth, near the house, in the month of June, 1826, so terrified them by the havoc it caused, that they erected a small camp in what they deemed a more secure place, half a mile lower down the Saco. The summer had been unusually dry until the beginning of July, when the clouds collecting about the mountains, poured forth their waters, as though the floodgates of the heavens were opened, the wind blew in most terrific hurricanes, and continued with unabated violence for several days.

On the night of the twenty-sixth of the month, the tempest increased to a fearful extent; the lightning flashed so vividly, accompanied by such awful howling of wind and rearing of thunder, that the peasantry imagined the day of judgment was at hand. At break of day of the twenty-seventh, the lofty mountains were seamed with the

numerous avalanches which had descended during the night. Every one felt anxious respecting the safety of the family in the valley, but some days elapsed before the waters subsided so far as to allow any enquiries to be made. A peasant swimming his horse across an eddy, was the first person who entered the Notch, when the terrible spectacle of the entire face of the hills having descended in a body, presented itself.

The Willeys' house, which remained untouched amidst the vast chaos, did not contain any portion of the family, whose bodies, with the exception of two children, were, after a search of some days, discovered, buried under some drift-wood, within 200 yards of the door, the hands of Miss Willey and a labourer grasping the same fragment. They had all evidently retired to rest, and most probably, alarmed by the sound of an avalanche, had rushed out of the house, when they were swept away by the overwhelming torrent of earth, trees, and water. The most miraculous fact is, that the avalanche, descending with the vast impetuosity which an abrupt declivity of 1500 feet would give it, approached within four feet of the house, when suddenly dividing, it swept round, and carrying away an adjoining stable with some horses, it again formed a junction within a few yards of the front. A flock of sheep, which had sought shelter under the lee of the house, were saved: but the family had fled from the only spot where any safety could have been found, every other part of the valley being buried to the depth of several feet, and their camp overwhelmed by the largest avalanche which fell. A person standing in rear of the house, can now with ease step upon the roof, the earth forming such a perpendicular and solid wall.

A small avalanche was seen de

scending from one of the mountains some days after the above occurrence. The thick fine forest, at first moved steadily along in its upright position, but soon began to totter in its descent, and fell headlong down with redoubled fury and violence, followed by rivers of floating earth and stones, which spread devastation far and wide. The long heat of summer had so dried and cracked the ground, that the subsequent rains found easy admission under the roots of trees, which, loosened by the violence of the wind, required but little to set the whole in motion. There was no tradition of a similar descent having ever taken place; but upon a close examination, traces of one, which had evidently occurred more than a century before, could be discovered amongst the forest.

Avalanches have descended from all the summits of the White Mountains, and continued to a great distance along the level ground; the largest, which is from Mount Jackson, being upwards of four miles in length.-From A Subaltern's Furlough in the United States and the Canadas.

THE TRADE WINDS.

IN illustration of the adaptation of the trade-winds to the purposes of commerce, a more striking instance, perhaps, could not be adduced than the following, which is given in a volume entitled Four Years' Residence in the West Indies, written by a gentleman of the name of Bayley. In the description of the island of St Vincent, it is there stated that a little sloop, the private signal of which was unknown to any of the merchants, sailed into the harbour one morning, and immediately attracted the notice of the surrounding crowd; and the history of its unexpected appearance is thus given:

"Every one has heard of the little fishing-smacks employed in cruising along the coast of Scotland; which carry herrings and other fish to Leith, Edinburgh, or Glasgow, worked by three or four hardy sailors, and generally commanded by an individual having no other knowledge of navigation than that which enables him to keep his dead reckoning, and to take the sun with his quadrant at noon-day.

"It appears that a man who owned and commanded one of these coasting vessels, had been in the habit of seeing the West India ships load and unload in the several ports of Scotland; and having heard that sugar was a very profitable cargo, he determined, by way of speculation, on making a trip to St Vincent, and returning to the Scottish market with a few hogsheads of that commodity. The natives were perfectly astonished: they had never heard of such a feat before; and they deemed it quite impossible that a mere fishingsmack, worked by only four men, and commanded by an ignorant master, should plough the boisterous billows of the Atlantic, and reach the West Indies in safety: yet so it was. The hardy Scotchman freighted his vessel, made sail, crossed the Bay of Biscay in a gale, got into the trades, and scudded along before the wind at the rate of seven knots an hour, trusting to his dead reckoning all the way. He spoke no vessel during the whole voyage, and never once saw land until the morning of the thirty-fifth day, when he descried St Vincent's right a-head; and setting his gaft-topsail, he ran down, under a light breeze, along the windward coast, of the island, and came to anchor about eleven o'clock, under the circumstances before mentioned."

Such a vessel, and so manned, could hardly have performed the voyage here described, had it not

been aided by the current of the trade-winds: and what then must be the advantages of such a wind, when, instead of aiding the puny enterprise of a single and obscure individual, it forwards the annual fleets of mighty nations?

But, if we would view the subject in all its magnitude, let us contemplate with a philosophic eye, the haven of any one of the larger seaports of Europe; filled with vessels from every maritime nation of the world; freighted not only with everything which the natural wants of man demand, or which the state of society has rendered necessary to his comfort, but with all which the most refined luxury has been able to suggest. "Merchandise of gold and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen and purple, and silk and scarlet, and all fine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours and ointments, and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour and wheat, and beasts and sheep, and horses and chariots.”—KIDD's Bridgewater Treatise.

FALL OF A MOUNTAIN IN

SWITZERLAND.

A Swiss wedding-party arrived at Art, a village at the southern extremity of the lake of Zug, in Switzerland, for the purpose of spending their holyday in ascending a mountain called the Righi. The party divided as they went towards the village of Goldau, those in front being about two hundred paces in advance when they entered the village. The attention of their friends who were behind them was suddenly arrested by an extraordinary appearance, which they stopped to view through their telescopes. All at once, the whole mountain (the

Rotzberg, or Ruffiberg, which was on the left of the village, and the summit distant from it several leagues,) appeared to move; soon a shower of stones passed through the air over their heads with the rapidity of lightning, and they effected their safety only by a speedy flight. All their friends disappeared in an instant, and were buried under the ruins of Goldau, which is now covered by a hill of rocky fragments, an hundred feet high. Notwithstanding all the search made on that fatal spot, no vestiges of the unfortunate people could be found.

There are sufficient proofs that this was not the first slide of the mountains of that neighbourhood, though it was the most terrible of all these catastrophes. An enormous quantity of snow had fallen during the preceding winter, and the months of July and August had been extraordinarily rainy; the fall took place on the 2d of September. During the 1st and 2d, it had rained in torrents without ceasing; in the morning of the 2d, the people in the neighbourhood, heard a noise and rumbling in the mountain; and other phenomena had been observed in different parts. At five o'clock in the afternoon, masses of rock were detached from the mountain, and precipitated with the crash of thunder into the valleys, where their ruins extended the whole length of the base of the Righi, to the breadth of 1000 feet; their height was 100 feet, and their length near a league. Large tracts of land, so charming and so fertile, were changed, in five minutes, into a frightful desert; the valleys were covered, for the space of a league square, with a chaos of hills, from 100 to 200 feet in height; the villages of Goldau, Busingen, Unter-Rothen, and Lowerz, were buried under the ruins; the western part of the lake of Lowerz was filled up, and the in