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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 36, 13 February 1894, Page 2

1 ho heights of waves have been grievously exaggerated by timorous voyagers, who are responsible for the ' ' mountain-high " estimates of the unsciontific, Dr Schotb, an omineub Cierman geographer, has been measuring with all the accuracy which instruments could command, those observed during a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. Instead of being " mountains high," in even the stormiest weather, the loftiest did not attain the dimensions of the humblest hills A wind force of 11 on the Beaufort Scalo gave v maximum elevation of 32ft. In a hurricane, 60ft wave 3 must occur rarely if ever, and even GOffc is a very exoeptiot a" elevation. la an ordinary t ade wind the height of the waves ohaung einh other over the Sauth Atlantio is about 3ft ti tijfr. These data entirely oonflrm thoae of Sooreaby aad the Notara and Challenger expedition". Dr Schott is, however, inclined to put the longth of a wave during storm?, with tho wind at 28 milfs, at betweon 400 ft and 42oft, which ia rather less thnn one measured by the Challenger expedition during a gale off the Gtozets, when the wind was blowing at the rate of thirty miles an hour.