HALF AN HOUR WITH THE WAVES. 9 



character of its oxygen that called ozone, which we 

 know results from a remarkable electrical condition. 

 It is this which inspires new life into the veins of the 

 jaded holiday seeker, and which in fact makes the 

 sea-air feel so exhilarating. The strength of the sea- 

 waves is almost proverbially known. We are aware 

 how the most powerful sea-walls, breakwaters, &c., 

 give way before their constant battering. No rock is 

 so hard that they cannot mechanically knock it to 

 pieces and waste it away ; whilst the softer portions of 

 the coast-line are degraded with an almost inconceiv- 

 able rapidity. Thus, the waste of the steeper parts of 

 the Norfolk coast is reckoned at not less than three 

 feet a year, and the coasts of Suffolk, Essex, York- 

 shire, Hampshire, and elsewhere are, in some parts, 

 being eaten away by the waves at nearly the same 

 rate. Perhaps nothing affords us a better proof of 

 the intense mechanical force of sea- waves than the 

 ease with which they break up the strongest vessel 

 after she has been stranded. 



Out in the open sea these waves are most power- 

 ful. And yet, what few people imagine, their power 

 does not extend downwards to any great depth. Off 

 the coasts of Newfoundland is perhaps the place 

 where the vertical depth of the waves extends most, 

 and here it reaches to five hundred feet during a 

 severe storm. The waves, in fact, are but commotions 

 of the surface of the sea. The water itself does not 

 shift, but the movements we call waves, which have 

 been given to the water by the action of the wind, 



