An Atlantic 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. 

The Journal of John Wesley