MEASURING BIG WAVES.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17414, 27 March 1922, Page 10

MEASURING BIG WAVES.

Captain Maurras, who commands ths French liner Paris, states that during a recent storm in the Otlantic his vessel en» countered wares 60 feet in height (write* a correspondent in a London, paper). If this is the case, these waves were rery much higher than any hitherto measuredhigher, that is, than any storm-waves, as apart from the gigantic solitary waves called ■"tidal" waves, but moro probably produoed by earthquake. "Kumatology, it must be remembered, is a regular science, and extensive and accurata obs-rvaticns have been made as to the height of sea waves, their sbapj, size, and width from crest to crest. Some years ago an officer of the French Navy made a series of observations in tha Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Ha carefully measured about four thousand waves. The largest were seen in a gale in the Indian Ocean. Thirty different waves averaged 29 feet in height, the largest being' 37 feet high. These measurements clcwy correspond with observations made by Captain Saresby la other oceans, and it would appear certain that, in the open sea, no stornvwave me£ Biires- more than 40 feet in vertical height from trough to crest Even the famous St. Helena rollers are only about 25 feet in height. L . , ~ The case is, of course, entirely diHeren* where Bea meets land. Rushing _up into shallow water, waves rise to an height. The great bell of the Bishop Hods Lighthouse was once wrenched from it* fastenings by a sea, although fixed at a level ol fully 100 feet above high-water mark. In » heavy gale from the west the cliffs of Kerry are drenched with epray to ft hagbt ol 150 feet. ~..-• Yet even eeas like these fade into insignificance when compared with the terrino surges which Binash upon "Lot's Wife, one of the lonely Mariana Islands. The* l«ye it streaming to its topmost pinnacle, 3ai» feet above sea level. At Skerryvore Lighthouse storm-waves have broken with a pie»ure estimated at 60831b to the square foot. The so-called -'tidal" wave is sometimes « fantastic proportions. In July, 1688, tho then famous Cunarder TJmbiii was struct 1Q mid-Atlantic by a solitary wave fully 60 feet high which did great damage. in tie same month, but not on the same day. the Wilson liner Martello met a similar wav* which very nearly wrecked her. True earthquake waves may rise to a height of 100 feet. The wave that swept upon Lisbon in the great earthquake o. 1755 was estimated to be from 60 to /0 feet in height. It drowned 60,000 persona. In the year '.846 a great srtorm, raged oB Raratonga, in the Pacific, and m the midsj of this a giant wave swept upon the island and worked fearful damage. The height of this wave was never measured, but a vessel from Tahiti, caught by it, was lifted c.eoa over the palm trees on the beach and d *; posited far inland. The captain ha« left i» on record that ho felt the tree-tops grating againrt the vossel's bottom &a she was swept onwards.