“A Kind of Waterspout”

Wednesday, 17.--The room at St. Just was quite full at five, and God gave us a parting blessing. At noon I preached on the cliff near Penzance, where no one now gives an uncivil word. Here I procured an account, from an eyewitness, of what happened the twenty-seventh of last month. A round pillar, narrowest at bottom, of a whitish color, rose out of the sea near Mousehole and reached the clouds. One who was riding over the strand from Marazion to Penzance saw it stand for a short space and then move swiftly toward her, till the skirt of it touching her, the horse threw her and ran away. It had a strong sulphurous smell. It dragged with it abundance of sand and pebbles from the shore; and then went over the land, carrying with it corn, furze, or whatever it found in its way. It was doubtless a kind of waterspout; but a waterspout on land, I believe, is seldom seen.

Friday, 19.--I rode to Illogan. We had heavy rain before I began, but scarcely any while I was preaching. I learned several other particulars here concerning the waterspout. It was seen near Mousehole an hour before sunset. About sunset it began traveling over the land, tearing up all the furze and shrubs it met. Nearly an hour after sunset it passed (at the rate of four or five miles an hour) across Mr. Harris's fields, in Camborne, sweeping the ground as it went, about twenty yards in diameter at bottom, and broader and broader up to the clouds. It made a noise like thunder, took up eighteen stacks of corn, with a large haystack and the stones whereon it stood, scattered them abroad (but it was quite dry), and then passed over the cliff into the sea.

Saturday, 20.--In the evening I took my old stand in the main street in Redruth. A multitude of people, rich and poor, calmly attended. So is the roughest become one of the quietest towns in England.