OCEAN WAVES THAT ARE RESPECTABLE HILLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11644, 4 May 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

OCEAN WAVES THAT ARE RESPECTABLE HILLS.

. ~if> —. — We hear persons who go down to the sea n ships talk about "waves mountain high," mt such waves exist only in the imagination, >r are hyperbolic, for the purpose of adornng a tale. If, on the land, you see an cleation thirty-eight feet high, you wouldn't nil if much of a mountain: yet it is very eldom that' an ocean wave teaches that teiglit. Mr. Vaughan Cornish, of London, has ecently been measuring waves, and has | ;iven an interesting report on their pro- | portions. He didn't, measure with his imag- J ination or his sensation when being violently ocked in the cradle of the deep while on a ! .aye-washed deck; but he used unimagi- j alive, unimpressible, matter-of-fact instru- j ments that recorded impressions only in j letres and hundredths of metres. ! In the Southern India..) Ocean, between he Cape of Good Hope and Island of St. j 'aid, he measured thirty waves, during a iolent north-west gale, 'and they averaged hie metres (23.53 ft) in height. The largest I them was eleven metres (37.53 ft) high. j tf these latter six followed each other with j emarkable regularity. In the open, ocean a quite strong wind aused waves five metres (16.-1 ft-) high, j Cast of the Cape of Good Hope, during I long west winds, which blew with great egularity for four days, the height of the 'aves onlv increased" from six to seven lei res (19.69 to 22.97 ft). Such waves as these latter are very rare u the usual transatlantic route, and persons ho tell tales about the great seas should be loderato iu the estimates, of heiulifc., 1.