On Wednesday, the 19th about 1 o'clock p.m., there appeared over the waters of the sound, a wonderful phenomenon, such as only occurs but once in a life time, indeed, one may cross the ocean many times and not witness anything to compare with this. We refer to three water spouts, the second and grandest of which, we shall try to describe.

As it stood in the offing, five miles distant, a dark column, from one half to a mile high, with a blue sky for a background, it revealed to the Cottage City summer residents, one of the many varied attractions made possible by old oceans erratic moods. This cylinder, apparently about one hundred feet in diameter, rose in a direct line from the water level until it reached an ordinary nimbus cloud at its zenith. Its formation from the water up to a distance of one hundred feet or more, showed a white foam from the main shaft and falling back into the ocean resembled the falling waters of a fountain. Where the body of water entered the cloud, it widened out into it funnel shape, and, at that point, it descended some five hundred feet until it reached the uniform size of the shaft below. In proof of its birth from the ocean, we noticed, with the aid of a powerful field glass, that it began to contract rapidly at the water level, and, when the connection was severed, the column wavered broke and finally disappeared as the smoke of a steamer. It was not long after the water spout vanished, ere the clouds, evidently disturbed by the invasion of this discordant element from the sea, began to gather in anger, as if for counsel. At this point the heavens presented an inky blackness, only relieved by the lightning's flash, accompanied by peals of thunder with sheets of rain. We are told by an observer on a yacht, exposed to this downpour, that hail stones the size of a hen's egg fell in abundance. The storm did not continue long, a blue sky, followed by a bright summer evening ending this eventful day.

The writer, who had spent a quarter of a life at sea, and had seen many water spouts and cloud bursts, had never witnessed a spectacle embodying so much grandeur and interest as the one described.

S. L. Norton. Cottage City, Aug. 20, 1896.