110 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



never been known to exceed sixty feet. Of course, 

 if to this be added the depth of the trough or furrow 

 between each wave below the sea surface, we shall get 

 a few feet more in actual altitude of the wave, but not 

 much. Still, to the mariner on board a deeply-laden 

 ship, whose freeboard or height from the water-line to 

 the deck is only about six feet, or even less, these 

 seas are quite sufficiently mountainous to cause many 

 apprehensions as to the ability of his ship to survive 

 their assaults. 



There are few sights at sea more appalling when 

 in a weak ship, on the long stretch between the great 

 Southern Capes, for instance, during a westerly gale, 

 than the way in which the gigantic waves, reaching 

 from horizon to horizon and towering high above 

 the cowering ship, come thundering up unceasingly 

 after her, as if they were bent upon her destruction. 

 Their energy seems so resistless, their perseverance 

 so unfailing, and their magnitude so terribly over- 

 powering, that it needs all a man's confidence in the 

 seaworthy qualities of his ship to keep him from 

 becoming afraid. Then the speed of these mighty 

 waves is so great that is, their apparent speed. For 

 here comes the most difficult point of all. Looking 

 at the waves as they come thundering on, you are 

 compelled to believe what seems to be the evidence 

 of your senses, viz. that the whole of the ocean surface 

 is rushing towards and past you at the rate of about 

 twenty knots an hour. Yet the fact is, of course, as 

 a little quiet consideration will show, that it must 

 be that the movement is as purely undulatory and 

 non-progressive as is the tightly stretched surface of 

 a sheet when the point of a stick is pressed against 



