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
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 a vessel, while many of
these 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 him understand what I was about
to do. I thought at length that he comprehended my design--but, whether
this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to
move from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him;
the emergency admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I
resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the
lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with
it into the sea, without another moment's hesitation.

"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself
who now tell you this tale--as you see that I _did_ escape--and as you
are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected,
and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther to say--I will
bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have been an hour, or
thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a
vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in