THE WAVES TOOTH 



143 



selves together and there is a recession of waters 

 that runs down the shore and helps form the 

 base of a new breaker, or else runs under the 

 wave and out seaward in the undertow. This 

 process of forming, breaking, striking, and re- 

 ceding is endlessly repeated; the shore is never 

 entirely free from it, the sea is never completely 

 at rest. Even under the smooth glittering 

 moonlit surface there is always the ground 

 swell, the curve and fall on the beach, the wash 

 downward of the broken waters. 



The waves, that have been affirmed as sel- 

 dom rising fifty feet from trough to crest in 

 mid-ocean even in hurricane weather, reach to 

 enormous heights when hurled against the 

 shore. A heavy storm on a shelving coast will 

 fling crests of spray up and over cliffs a hun- 

 dred and fifty feet in height with apparently 

 little effort. The whole wave does not go so 

 high by any means; but the tremendous im- 

 petus put in the top by the forAvard motion 

 of the wave, together with the force of the 

 wind, hurls the crest far beyond its parent base. 

 The usually cited illustration of this is Bell 

 Light on the Scottish coast, which, though one 

 hundred and fifteen feet above the sea, is often 

 hidden in clouds of foam and spray. And, 

 again, Eddystone Light from a structure sev- 



BreaKinf! 



and striking 

 of crests. 



Height of 

 waves along 

 rocky 

 coasts. 



