greater number of the articles were shattered in the most
extraordinary way - so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance
of being stuck full of splinters - but then I distinctly recollected
that 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, for 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 thus be 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 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 school-master
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 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. {*1}

"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in