Paragould soliphone., 1922-06-09
WAVES MOVE FAST
Average Speed of More Than
 Forty Miles an Hour.
Fortunately, Their Velocity and Power Are Materially Reduced as
 They Near the Shore.

When the wind blows fiercely most dwellers in towns, particularly in these near the sea, think of them selves what a stormy time our ships and sailors must be having, says q writer in a London paper, according to the Montreal Herald.
 Storm-waves around the shores of these islands frequently have immense force behind them, treating blocks of stone and heavy timbers as playthings. smashing like match sticks apparently the most substantial obstacles.
 During one storm in the Solent, near Hurst castle, the waves exerted such force ninety feet below the surface that stones weighing 300 pounds or more were torn from their resting places and hurled on the beach, to- gether with heavy masses of seaweed attached to them.
 It is in the deep ocean where the Forty, fifty and even sixty feet is the height to which the pillows of the At lantic, the Indian ocean, and the Southern will rise in times of tempest.
 In pre-steam days British man-ot- war encountered an unusually heavy gale of wind just outside the Bay ot Biscay. Between two seas her storm trysails were totally becalmed. while the crest of each sea was above the level of the center of her mainyard. The mainyard was sixty feet above the water-line.
 atThe water from a wave-as distinct from the body of the wave itself-has been known to do serious damage to vessels of great height above the deck. One notable instance of the kind was the smashing of the port lifehoat of a Hamburg American liner, dashed on the bridge deck eighty feet above the Sealine.
 Giant storm-waveS of the ocean have an average speed of rather more than forty miles an hour. Their length is the distance from crest to crest. This is about 400 feet for the Atlantic waves. It is much more, however, for the waves of the profoundly deep Pacific ocean.
 Of course, it has to be remembered that giant waves in the open ocean can move with perfect freedom. It IS when they begin to touch bottom ill comparatively shallow water that their great speed is reduced-luckily for the fronts of the British coast resorts
 The velocity of the storm wind in the Atlantic is frequently several miles an hour greater than the velocity of the wave. This results in a good deal of spraying, which, in very severe weather, sometimes seriously thlckens and obscures the air.
 At the seaside in summer we may ;:t,metiines see spraying caused by a tiff breeze blowing against an advanc- Ing, wavelet.
 During gale on the British coast ii will be noticed that the waves begin to break a long way out That is be cause these iiwaves, being big ones touch bottom the sooner. Their lower pant moves forward at it's old speed :. The result is that the upper parl curls over and breaks.
 In very deep water giant wave has been known to touch bottom and stir up the fine sand there at depth ot 1,200 feet.
 On fine autumn day we may some times see a procession of big ground sWells" coming shoreward and break ing on the beach with the boom of dis tant thunder. They represent the dis turbance of the sea caused by storm far out to sea. By closely observing the direction from which these swells come one can form an idea of where the storm is situated. Sometimes the waves travel faster than the storm and even give warning of it's approach