128 



THE OPAL SEA 



" Wares 



mountain 



high." 



The height 

 of storm 

 waves. 



proportion. Sometimes they are broken by the 

 heaviness of the wind or by cross surges; but 

 usually the outlines hold intact and the waves 

 sweep on and out of sight with a serpentine 

 grace unknown to any other element. 



The size of these wave forms in mid-ocean 

 is something not usually known to the tourist 

 crossing summer seas. The " waves mountain 

 high " that he may chance to meet with in a 

 September gale are only fifteen or twenty feet 

 high; and the hurricane waves of mid-winter, 

 which he seldom sees, do not rise more than 

 fifty feet at their greatest. They look more 

 formidable than their statistics; but I believe 

 it is generally conceded that no one has ever 

 seen a wave more than fifty feet in height on 

 the North Atlantic. In the Antarctic and in 

 the Cape of Good Hope region, where there 

 are long and strong winds with very deep seas, 

 the height is greater, especially with the ex- 

 ceptional wave called by sailors a " gray-back " ; 

 but even there one meets with no " mountains " 

 of water. From hollow to crest in a perpendic- 

 ular line it is doubtful if any wave ever rises 

 so high as a hundred feet. This of course re- 

 fers to waves on the open sea and not along 

 shore, A breaker may be dashed up a rocky 

 coast to a greater height than that by its tre- 



