there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now, I could not
account for this difference except by supposing that the roughened
fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed; that the
others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or from some
reason had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the
bottom before the turn of the flood came--or of the ebb, as the case might
be.

"I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might be thus
whirled up again to the level of the ocean without undergoing the fate of
those which had been drawn in more early or absorbed more rapidly. I made
also three important observations. The first was, that as a general rule,
the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that
between the two masses of equal extent, the one spherical and the other of
any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere;
the third, that between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and
the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly.

"Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject with an
old schoolmaster of the district; and it was from him that I learned the
use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me--although I
have forgotten the explanation--how what I had observed was in fact the
natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments; and showed me
how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more
resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty, than
an equally bulky body of any form whatever.

"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing
these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and
this was that at every revolution we passed something like a barrel, or
else the yard or the mast of the vessel; while many of those things which
had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the
whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little
from their original station.

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to
the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter,
and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother's
attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and
did everything in my power to make h