Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-19
RIDDLES OF THE SEA
IF YOU would know whether there IS in
rea1i+1, an Island of Dead ShiDS in the

middle OF the ACldnt1C, WIletHeI waves w
rise eighty feet high and engulf the mariner,
whether oil on the waters will quiet their
troubles, whether the man eating shark is
nature fake, whether icebergs may be felt
afar off, or if you would know how to dodge
a hurricane, how to go back to yesterday
a thousand and one of the things of the sea
that have worried you all your l1fe,-you
have only to write to the Governments hy-
geographic office for the answer.
For this photographic Office of the navy
has set itself to answer such questions. That
the one answer may suffice for the multitude,
bulletins are being printed regularly with
collections of such queries and their explana-
tons, in plain United States which the man
in the street may read and understand.
How Big Is Wave
TAKE the waves, for instance, which fic-
tionistS so often cause to rise mountain
high. Pictures often show these topping
seas rising sheer hundred feet above the
observer, the height depending upon the size
of the fright that was suffered by the retailer
of the yarn.
Waves at sea in time of a severe storm
run about twenty feet high. There Is very
simple way to measure them. One only has
to climb a mast to height from which he
can lust see the horizon over the crest OF an
trough of the sea. The height of his eye
above the water line at the time of Observa-
ton is the exact height of the wave. 1t IS
a safer measurement than anybOdy's TRAN
gulation with high priced instruments. 1t
Shows the topping seas" to be about twenty
feet high.
There is an occasional great wave that is
bigger. At times there are unusual con-
ditions that produce unusual waves. A big
wave sometimes eats up the little ones and
carries them along with it and, while none
such has ever been authoritatlvely measured,
it is believed that some of these do run
FORTY feet high The deck of the new Olym-
pic, the biggest ship that has ever been
built, will be sixty feet above the water
The people who ride back and forth upon
her will have gage ready set for them with
which to measure big waves. If an onrush-
ing sea ever obscures the horizon from OBJ
servers on the deck of the Olympic, there
will be recorded wave that was sixty feet
high. Any Captain can tell his passengers
the height of the decks above the water, and
any man may thus try his hand at measuring
the height of waves.
Another strange thing about waves that
are rolling in from the sea is that they bring
no water with them. While these mad
waves are rolling in apiece of dr1ftwood may
ride them steadily and make progress away
from the land. This is for the reason that
waves are made in the very way a wrinkle
may be pushed across the tablecloth with
pencil laid fiat The tablecloth does not adj
vance; but the ridge, because of force
bearing on it, goes forward.
Sareasso Sea
THERE is the Sargasso Sea in the North
Atlantic. Even geographers have de-
scribed it as a matted region of seaweed into
which vessels dare not go. Fiction writer's
have woven many yarn about its center,
into which are said to have gathered the
derelicts of the ages. Its vast expanses are
peopled in fancy with mariners bold and
COLLINS of old which frolic at night over the
phantom masts of ships that have sailed
into it rudderless. 1t has been described as
the eddy of the Atlantic which gathers all
manner of things that are left to the mercy
Of the currents.
AS matter of fact, most of this is purely
hction. Recently the Norwegian bark
Crown, lumber laden, waterlogged, and de-
serted, drifted straight through the Sargasso
Sea without meeting enough resistance to
counterfeit the weight of the wind blowing
her westward. The development of trade
toward Panama and the ability of present
law boats to carry enough coal for the entire