Even dry land several feet above sea-level is subject to inundations by the sea when there is sonic unusual rise in the water, commonly called a 'tidal wave,' doubtless because it reaches its greatest height at high tide. The lowlands of the Netherlands, Denmark, and England have suffered from such floods when high winds have driven water upon the shore and piled it up at periods of unusually high tide. At such times the surface of the sea !nay rise 10 or 15 feet higher than the normal reach of the high tide. The West ladies, the Gulf Coast, and the coast of the .Nliddle Atlantic States are subject to such inundations during the passage of the fierce typ ical hurricanes. The ilOod big is experienced even as far north as New York and Itoston; and the destruction at September 8, 1900, when thousands of lives Were lost, was due to the pas sage of one of these hurricanes. The Sea Islands on the Georgia coast are occasionally flooded dur ing these storms, and any low point along the coast south of New York is liable to such 'tidal waves' at any time. but especially in August and t he ant 11111T1 MOTION, 1.01011 tropical hurricanes develop 1110,1 •011111Hally. High water followed the hurricane of September 3-12, 1589, all the way from the Vest Indies to New Jersey. '1'11c rise in the level of the ocean during the passage of these storms is due to the combination of ordinary tide.: With the effect of the steady Violent, winds 101101 drift the water before them and pile it up on the shelving shore. As illustrated in Calvestons this wave rises over ordinarily habitable land, nndermining houses, and thus aiding in the de-truction done by the winds themselves and the wind waves which these winds raise on the surface of the sea. Far greater destruction of life is avenmplished in the Pacific than in the Atlantic by these tropical storms, there called typhoons. The sea wave washes over low coral atolls. In the case of the Samoan hurricane of 15. 15:19. a ty11110011 Washed ashore 21 vessels that were anchored in the harbor of Apia. Some 150 of the sailors on these vessels were drowned, and only two of the ships that were in the harbor were afloat after the Typhoon Waves advance on the low delta coasts of India and Sonthern China. There has been ease after ease of destruc
tion of life to the number of many thousands in the delta lowlands of Asia; and in at least one case, in 1870. it is estimated that 150.000 people were killed by such an inundation in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra.
Finally, sea waves generated by earthquake shocks may inundate coastal lands. These, again, arc best illustrated on the low, densely populated coasts of Asia, where earthquake shocks arc numerous. The earthquake wave, eaused by a jar along the seashore or on the sea bottom, disturbs the entire sea from surface to bottom. The wave is dome-shaped, though not very high, perhaps not, over an inch or two. But it is so deep and broad that, advancing over the shallow ing bottom toward the shore, it grows higher and higher, perhaps reaching a height of 100 feet. The wave rushes over the land with ter rible force and destructiveness. The earthquake which destroyed Lisbon in 1755 was accompanied by a prodigious tidal wave. By the earthquake wave caused in 1883 during the eruption of Krakatoa in the Strait of Sunda, a water wave was generated which rose from 50 to 80 feet, upon the neighboring lowlands, drowning thou sands of people, and carrying a large vessel in land a distance of a mile and a half, leaving it stranded 30 feet above sea-level. By an earth quake wave, June 15, 1896, a part of the coast of .Japan was devastated for a distance of 175 miles, 27,000 lives were lost, and 60,000 people made homeless. Many similar instances are on record.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. VallOs, Etudes sur les inondaBibliography. VallOs, Etudes sur les inonda- lions, lours causes et lours effets (Paris, 1857); United States Engineer's Report (Washington, 1875) ; Mississippi River Commission Reports (Washington, 1SS2-92) ; Montreal Flood Com viission Report (Montreal, 1890) ; Von Sonklar, Fon den Ilehersehweininungen (Leipzig. 1883) ; Work of the Weather Bureau in Connection with the Rivers of the United States (Washington, 1896) ; Stoney, Extraordinary Floods in Southern. India (London, 1898) Williams, On Soule Ef fects of Land Floods in a Tidal Ricer (London, 1891) ; "Storm Waves on the Great Lakes and the Ocean," Monthly Weather Review (Wash ington, 1895).