Waves of the Sea

Wind always shifts during a storm, but deep-sea waves once formed travel with unchanged direction under the action of gravity, hence we should not think of a regular procession of long crested ridges as typical but exceptional in a stormy sea, which is properly and characteristically a welter of over-riding ridges culminating in peaks which curl and break in caps of foam which the wind whips off and drifts in clouds of flying spray. In the course of many voyages the writer has only twice seen a really regular sea during a storm, that in the Bay of Biscay to which reference has already been made being the most spectacular be cause, when morning came, the clouds broke and a brilliant sun shone upon deep blue water laced and fretted with silver foam. The lofty standpoint of the navigating bridge gave a broad view of the great procession of mile-long crests charging on from the horizon, regular in alignment as ranks of cavalry and advanc ing at a speed of more than forty miles an hour.

Height of Waves.

Under certain conditions, however, the height of waves is more impressive than their crest-length or their speed. When during the growth of the waves in a storm the

condition is reached at which each ridge or peak passing near the ship tops the horizon, the whole character of the scene is trans formed_ From a condition in which the waves seem mere mounds.

we suddenly pass to that in which they assume the appearance termed mountainous. When the vessel is buried in the trough of the waves only four or five ridges, comprising three or four wave lengths, intervene between the spectator and the horizon, but there is little to suggest that the view has been narrowed to an unusually small scale, and the steepness of the ship's side tends to make the horizon seem more distant than if the station were a sloping eminence of equal height. Moreover, the greater storm waves usually occur during squalls, and these are often accom panied by driving rain which hazes the atmosphere and conse quently seems to extend the view. The writer has observed such a narrow environment of four or five waves less than forty feet in height looking like a prospect some miles in extent with moving hills hundreds of feet high. (V. Co.)