160 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Jtii.y 1, 1896. 



driving rain, upon the surface of the water, is excellently 

 done. The picture is a genuine study of a storm at sea, 

 which is, of course, much more rarely painted than the 

 storm waves as seen from land. The late Mr. William 

 Daniell is one of the few painters who has represented 

 from personal experience the storm waves of the open 

 ocean. l'"ig. 1 is a reproduction of his picture, '' An 

 Indiaman in a North-Wester off the Capo of (lood Hope," 

 reproduced from a fine print in the British Museum. The 

 immense velocity of these very long waves is finely indi- 

 cated in the billow whitli rushes from right to left, having 

 just raised the ship to its summit. This artist was too 

 much given to exaggeration to be quite satisfactory as a 

 sea painter : his waves are often ridiculously steep besides 

 being too hi^h ; but this picture has the merit of con- 

 veying an impression of the great length and speed of 

 ocean waves. 



The Academy of 1S90 has a large number of sea-pieces 

 of varying degrees of merit. Perhaps the best study of 

 waves is No. IKil in the Water-Colour Boom, by Mr. 

 Reginald Smith ; " Where the wild Atlantic surges rush 

 with headlong race to shore," which is reproduced from a 

 photograph in Fig. 2. We are looking towards the coast, 

 and see the sloping rounded backs of the rollers, whose 

 long undulating crests extend far to the right, rank upon 

 rank charging irresistibly along. In this picture the 

 network film of foam is very well rendered. In the left 

 lower corner only does the drawing fall below ex- 

 cellence. In Mr. John Eraser's picture, " Newhaven " 

 (105), in No. V. Gallery, the heaving of the waves near a 

 vertical wall has been skilfully preserved, while all trace 

 of forward motion has been properly suppressed. In Mr. 

 J. C. Hook's pictures (Nos. 48 and 279) the water is so 

 smooth as to give little scope for wave drawing on the 

 scale adopted ; yet a careful examination shows great 

 mastery of the forms and motion of the sea. Mr. Wm. J. 

 Callcott has put plenty of movement into the sea in 

 " Smcaton's Lighthouse on the Eddystone " (No. 411), but 

 he makes the common mistake of representing, in the 

 foreground of the picture, two waves which are back to 

 back, running away from one another instead of following 

 in procession. Mr. C. Napier Hemy's " Through Air and 

 Sea, through Scud and Spray," is one of the best wave 

 studies. The light coming through the top of the wave on 

 the left indicates the thinness at the crest, which, from its 

 position, could not be shown by the drawing. The action 

 in the picture seems to cease abruptly in the right-hand 

 corner, which is a pity. In " ^'olunteers for a Boat's 

 Crew" (917), by Mr. T. Somerscales, there is wild white 

 water lit by sunshine in the distance, and a sluggish sea 

 under a black cloud in the foreground. The effect of 

 cont:ast is fine, but I think the drawing has been to some 

 extent sacrificed for the sake of this effect ; there seems too 

 much wind in the picture for the nearer waves to move so 

 sluggishly. There are a number of sea-pieces in this year's 

 Academy which I cannot criticize because they have no 

 drawing, and this applies to several pictures by distinguished 

 sea painters, who have not taken the trouble to draw the 

 forms they know so well. For complete disregard of 

 drawing in sea-pieces, however, the most notable collection 

 of examples I have seen is in this year's Paris exhibitions. 



For good book illustrations of waves I may refer to Mr. 

 Eobert Leslie's charming " Waterbiography." All his 

 illustrations of the sea are worth studying. Mr. Leslie 



* Tlie following explanation I'-as been giren of the smoothing of 

 the sea bv rain. The rain does not penetrate, but, driving water 

 down before it, mixes up parts cf the sea water the momentum of 

 whose oscilktion is in opposite directions, thus annulling the 

 rhvthmic swing of wave motion. 



knows the sea too well either to slur over the drawing, or 

 to attempt an increased ofl'ect by exaggerating the forms of 

 waves. 



Of wave phenomena, other than the wind-raised waves 

 of the sea, artists take but little note. I have met with 

 hardly any attempt to represent a train of standing waves 

 in a rapid stream, except in one picture in the Luxem- 

 burg Gallery, and that is not successful. Ship waves 

 are sometimes done, the earliest attempt that I am 

 acquainted with being in Turner's well-known picture, 

 " The I'^ighting Trirn'raire towed to her Last lierth." In a 

 fine picture now at Versailles, " Arrivre de I'Escadre 

 Ilusse, Toulon, IH Octobre, 189;j," by M. Paul .Tobert, the 

 curved and stepped front of the echelon ship- waves is well 

 shown. 



Photographic views of waves consist for the most part 

 of studies of big breakers on rocky coasts, with clouds of 

 flying spray, and, sometimes, masses of curdled foam. 

 Mr. Worslcy Benison's " Westby Series " of photographs 

 are the finest studies with which 1 am acquainted. One 

 of these is reproduced in our full-page illustration. There 

 is no sea painter, however skilful, who would not fiad 

 much to repay him in the careful study of such photographs. 

 Above all, the foam is rendered as no painter ever rendered 

 it ; not merely the thin film of foam of which I have already 

 spoken, but the thick white froth of the breaker line, 

 which looks by daylight like whipped cream, but by 

 moonlight is changed to molten silver. This difference of 

 aspect, I think, is due to the circumstance that in moon- 

 light we only get a surface, and therefore a metallic, 

 reflection ; whereas the sun's stronger rays pierce into the 

 curdled masses and then struggle up again into the air, 

 thus imparting the translucenoe which gives to foam its 

 look of lightness. 



THE FACE OF THE SKY FOR JULY. 



By Herbert Sajdler, F.E.A.S. 



THE Sun's disc is now comparatively free from spots. 

 Conveniently observable minima of Algol occur 

 at Oh. 5m. a.m. on the 5th ; at 8h. 54m. p. it. on 

 the 7th ; and at lOh. 36m. p.m. on the 27th. 

 Mercury is visible as a morning star during the 

 first three weeks of the month. He rises on the 1st at 

 2h. 44m. A.M., or Ih. 6m. before the Sun, with a northern 

 declination of 19° 44', and an apparent diameter of 8:^", 

 about fgths of the disc being illuminated. On the 4th he 

 rises at 2h. 30m. am., with a northern declination of 

 20' 28', and an apparent diameter of 76", being at his 

 greatest western elongation (21 J°) at noon. On the 8th 

 he rises at 2h. 34m. a.m., or 2h. 20m. before the Sun, with 

 a northern declination of 21° 30', and an apparent diameter 

 of 7", about one-half of the disc being illuminated. On 

 the 11th he rises at 2h. 35m. a.m., or Ih. 24m. before the 

 Sun, with a northern declination of 22° 11', and an 

 apparent diameter of 6i ", about x^'^^s of the disc being 

 illumiaated. On the 16th he rises at 2h. 45m. a.m., or 

 lb. 20m. before the Sun, with a northern declination of 

 22° 54', and an apparent diameter of 5f", about three- 

 quarters of the disc being illuminated. On the 21st he 

 rises at 3h. 7m. a.m., or lb. 202. before the Sun, with a 

 northern declination of 22^ 46', and an apparent diameter 

 of 5j", tVo^^s of ^^6 disc being illuminated. After this 

 he approaches the Sun too closely to be conveniently 

 observed. While visible, Mercury passes through the 

 eastern portion of Taurus into G^emini, being near 

 1) Geminorum on the evening of the 11th, and /x Geminorum 

 on the evenings of the 12th and 13th. He is at his 



