302 Proceedings of the British Association for 1850. 



rested — ^the near approach of a boat to a whale — I found it 

 quite practicable, whenever the pursuing boat approached 

 within twice or thrice its length (except when the position 

 was near end on) to estimate the distance to less than a 

 yard. Now, the means of comparison by the eye as to the 

 estimation of the breadth of the Atlantic waves, was that of 

 the ship's length of 220 feet. When the ship was fairly in 

 the middle of the depression betwixt two waves, it was as- 

 sumed, with reference to this known measure, that some- 

 thing obviously less, but not greatly so, than the ship's 

 length, was the distance of each of the two waves then con- 

 templated, — giving a total width of 600 feet. But the com- 

 parison of the time required by a wave to pass from stem to 

 stern, with the average time of transit of an entire wave, 

 yielded a much better result; and, on much consideration of 

 the subject, I am inclined to believe that the estimate is a 

 tolerably close approximation to the truth. It should be 

 observed, too, that as the headway of the ship, in the direc- 

 tion of the course of the wave — being a known quantity — it 

 was favourable to the accuracy of the estimate. For, as- 

 suming an error in the width of the waves to have occurred, 

 say to the amount of one-twelfth of the whole, or 49 feet, — 

 the effect upon the calculated velocity of the wave would 

 have been only about a sixteenth, or 2*16 miles per hour. 

 The form and character of these deep-sea waves became at 

 the same time interesting subjects of observation and consi- 

 deration. In respect to form, we have perpetual modifica- 

 tions and varieties, from the circumstance of the inequality 

 of operation of the power by which the waves are formed. 

 Were the wind perfectly uniform in direction and force, and 

 of sufficient continuance, we might have, in wide and deep 

 seas, waves of perfectly regular formation. But no such 

 equality in the wind ever exists. It is perpetually changing 

 its direction within certain limits, and its force too, both in 

 the same place and in proximate quarters. Innumerable 

 disturbing influences are therefore in operation, generating 

 the varieties more or less observable in natural sea-waves. 

 In regard to my own observations of the actual forms of 

 waves, nothing particularly new could be expected from an 



