The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-01-10
The Height Of Waves.

Many experiments have been made ID
measure the height of waves in all con.
ditions of weather. One authority goeS
as high as sixty-four feet and another al
low as five feet, giving it as his reason
that the penetrating power of wind can.
not reach below that depth. OF this
philosopher it may be presumed that he
was martyr to sea-sckness, and that
he must have contented himself with
making his calculations in his study.
On the other hand, height of sixty
four feet is almost as absurd, though il
is more in correspondence than five feet
can possibly be with our conception of
the altitude of the majestic surges
which roll under the impulse of storms
of wind along the surface of the great
oceans. 1t is true that the earthquake
wave has been known to rise to sixty
feet; yet surges of this kind are happily
scarce, since when they occur they arc
not only in the habit of razing whole
towns upon the coast line where they
break, but of carrying some of the ves-
sells they may encounter at anchor in
the neighborhood to the distance of a
days walk inland. Practical expert.
ence, however will look with suspicion
upon most of the scientific theories
touching the altitude and velocity of
waves. Prof Airy's table couples
speed with dimensions, and, as a SAM
pie of his calculations, it may be shown
that wave one hundred thousand feet
in breadth will travel at the rate of
$3.50 feet per second in water that is
ten thousand feet deep. This is posi-
BILE, but it is difficult to accept such con-
illusions as exact. At all events, there
is nothing more deceptive than the
height of waves. The tallest seas in tho
world run off Cape Horn, where.
whether the wind blows east or west,
they have a holiday ground within q
belt OF eight or ten degrees that COM
passes the globe without the interven-
ton of a break of land. Any man who
has run, say, before a strong westerly
gale round the Horn will know the mag
nitude of the seas which follow his ship.
Viewed from the stern when the vessel
sinks in the trough, the oncoming sea
that is about to underrun the ship and
lift her soaring to the flying heavens
will seem to heave its rushing summit
to the height of the mizzen-top; but
when the summit is gained by the OBJ
server, and the waves viewed from
there, it will then be seen that those
crests which from the deck looked q
long way up, win now appear to be q
long way down. 1t is common shore
going phrase that the seas run ssmoun.
tain high The idea implied is not
very generally accepted by sailors,
though the term may be sometimes
used by them for convenience. The
truth is, if waves were as tall as they
are popularity supposed to be, no ship
could by any possibility live in them.
They are lofty to the fancy, because at
sea they are usually surveyed from low
freeboards. To a spectator on steamer,
with six-foot height of side, an Allan,
tic or Pacific surge would necessarily
appear as a mountain as compared tc
the aspect it would take from the decA
of an old line-of-battle ship, with .
thirty-foot ''dip." or from one of those
lofty, glazed, and castellated structure
which in former times took six month,
to jog soberly from the Thames to TIN
Hooghly. London Telegraph.
james Lyon, of Pappla, Ca, Aw
thirty children, -AtIdntd Constitution.