AND OTHER WATER WAVES 75 



In the absence of any statement to the contrary 

 it may be safely concluded that the wave-length 

 was judged by eye, not determined by indirect 

 measurements as in the cases of Paris and Scoresby, 

 eye estimation of the distance between two crests 

 simultaneously observed being the almost universal 

 practice of officers on the bridge. Thus this 

 length for Southern (Indian) Ocean of 600- 

 750 feet should be compared with my eye estimate 

 of 350-400 feet for similar weather in the North 

 Atlantic, and not with Scoresby's indirect measure- 

 ment there of a length of 560 feet. 



Captain Percy Howe, who has voyaged on the 

 same route, informs me that between the Cape of 

 Good Hope and Adelaide he was in 1907 subject 

 to a gale of 21 days' duration, from July i 5th to 

 August 5th, much the most prolonged which 

 he has ever experienced. During the most violent 

 parts of the storm the waves which passed the 

 ship obscured his horizon when the ship was on 

 an even keel. His eye-height on the bridge of 

 the Owestry Grange was 45 feet, so that the 

 waves exceeded this height. The ship's length was 

 480 feet, and she was wholly within the trough 

 of the waves, the length of which he estimates at 

 750 feet. These estimates, which are almost the 

 same as Captain David's, are for a part of the same 



series of exceptional storms. 



5 



