maelstrom

A large and violent whirlpool.

To his right fell a gleaming sheet of water, and below it was a maelstrom, that made one giddy by its terrific gyrations.

The falukah plunged over a waterfall and was almost submerged, was caught again in a maelstrom and went twirling on in the blackness.

A chaotic or turbulent situation.

It was of Jean Paul's doing: some single billow in that vast World-Mahlstrom of Humour, with its heaven-kissing coruscations, which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death!

He escaped at last, dizzy from the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that had caught and whirled him.