

AND OTHER WATER WAVES 83 



average, and not merely the distance between a 

 single pair of crests in a confused sea, would not 

 be met with there in ordinary storms. 



Such a sea, in which a large ship of 500 feet 

 long running directly before the wind is left, time 

 after time, within the trough of the wave, they 

 have only witnessed in the Southern Ocean, par- 

 ticularly in the part east of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where the sea is more regular and is prob- 

 ably longer than that near Cape Horn, though 

 perhaps not higher. * 



Thus, it is only in the Southern Ocean, par- 

 ticularly in the eastern parts, where the waves are 

 not only large but regular, that the officers' estimate 

 of wave-length agrees with the measurements from 

 speed and periodic time. 



I have not yet traversed the Southern Ocean, 

 but in my efforts to judge wave-length from on 

 board ship in the Irish Channel, the Mediterranean, 

 East China Sea, Caribbean, North Pacific, and 

 North Atlantic I almost despaired of getting any 

 results worth recording on account of the dis- 

 crepancies above described. It seems as if the 

 measurements from velocity and period were a 

 nearer representation of the natural state of the 

 sea than those gained by officers from their ex- 

 perience on the bridge. Yet the latter must not 

 be lightly dismissed, and more attention should 



