waterspouts, at sea, generally occur between
the tropics, and I believe frequently after a calm, such as the poet
has described in the following lines:

"Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be,
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

"All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand.
No bigger than the moon.

"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath, nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where
And not a drop to drink!"

Happily "dead calms" do not generally last so long as to lead to any
serious result. Sailors have a superstitious and foolish belief that
whistling in a calm will bring up a breeze, and they do this in a
drawling, beseeching tone, on some prominent part of the vessel. Poor
fellows! what a pity that their thoughts should not more frequently be
directed to Him "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and meted out heaven with a span," and whose works and wonders in the
deep "they that go down to the sea in ships" have such abundant
opportunity for observing.

HEAVING THE LEAD.

Here we have a sailor in the act of heaving the lead, or taking
soundings, which is a thing extremely necessary to be done when a ship
is approaching the shore, as there is great danger of her running on a
sand-bank or striking on a sunken rock. I will now tell you how it is
managed. A sailor gets over the ship's side, as you see in the
engraving, and takes his station in what are called "the chains;" he
holds in his hand a coil of rope, with the length in fathoms marked upon
it; this rope has a mass of lead attached to the end of it. At the
bottom of the lead, is a hollow place, into which a piece of tallow
candle is stuck, which brings up distinguishing marks from the bottom of
the sea, such as small shells, sand, or mud, adhering to it. If the
tallow be only indented it is supposed to have fallen on bare rocks. A
correct account of the soundings is entered in the logbook; this book
contains a description of the ship's course, the direction of the wind,
and other circumstances, during every hour of each day and night. Having
arranged the rope so as to allow it to fall freely when cast, the sailor
throws the lead forward into the water, giving rope su