ook place in latitude
42 degrees 22 minutes north and longitude 52 degrees 35 minutes west.
This is rather far north for waterspouts so early in the year. The
waterspout crop is generally more plentiful when thunder and lightning
are on top, which is in warmer weather. The temperature of the air at
the time of the encounter was 37 degrees; water 54 degrees. It had
been cold during the night, but grew warmer in the morning. The clouds
which overspread the firmament were of the cumulus pattern.

Erichsen and Lorentzen have not only seen other waterspouts, but the
first, when on a sailing vessel in the tropics, ran into the very
middle of one with no worse result than to deluge the deck of the ship
with water as a heavy shower would have done. He thinks an unusually
large waterspout might possibly sink a very small vessel, say a pilot
boat, but with a ship of ordinary size he considers bombarding a
waterspout with cannon a waste of powder.

AN HEROIC WOMAN.

Every boy and girl should learn to swim. When one recalls how easily
the art is acquired, and the many occasions that are liable to arise,
we cannot but wonder that the accomplishment is so universally
neglected by the other sex. It is pleasant to note, however, that
swimming is growing to be popular among women, and the day is not far
distant, when the majority of young ladies will become the rivals of
their brothers in their ability to keep their heads above water.

Torres Strait separates Australia from Papua or New Guinea; and
connects the Arafura Sea on the west, with the Coral Sea on the east.
Its current is swift and the waters from time immemorial have been
dangerous to navigation. It has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and
it is only a few months since that the steamer _Quetta_ was lost in
those waters. One hundred and sixteen persons perished on that
terrible night in the South Pacific, but among the survivors was Miss
Lacy, whose experience was not only among the most interesting and
thrilling ever recorded, but emphasizes the statement we have made at
the opening of our sketch.

Miss Lacy says she was sitting in the saloon, engaged in writing a
letter, the other ladies practicing for a concert which it was intended
to give on shipboard. Everything was going along, merrily, and all
were in high spirits, when, without the least warning, they were
startled by a harsh, grating noise, the steamer rocked violently, and
nearly every one wa