A MIGHTY SEA-WAVE. 187 



to show where this region lay. I should not be greatly 

 surprised to learn that it was far from the continent of South 

 America. 



The great wave reached the Sandwich Isles between four 

 and five on the morning of May 10, corresponding to about 

 five hours later of Peruvian time. An oscillation only was 

 first observed at Hilo, on the east coast of the great southern 

 island of Hawaii, the wave itself not reaching the village till 

 about a quarter before five. The greatest difference between 

 the crest and trough of the wave was found to be thirty-six 

 feet here ; but at the opposite side of the island, in Keala- 

 kekua Bay (where Captain Cook was killed), amounted only 

 to thirty feet. In other places the difference was much less, 

 being in some only three feet, a circumstance doubtless due 

 to interference, waves which have reached the same spot 

 along different courses chancing so to arrive that the crest of 

 one corresponded with the trough of the other, so that the 

 resulting wave was only the difference of the two. We must 

 explain, however, in the same way, the highest waves of 

 thirty-six to forty feet, which were doubtless due to similar 

 interference, crest agreeing with crest and trough with trough, 

 so that the resulting wave was the sum of the two which had 

 been divided, and had reached the same spot along different 

 courses. It would follow that the higher of the two waves 

 was about twenty-one feet high, the lower about eighteen 

 feet high ; but as some height would be lost in the encounter 

 with the shore-line, wherever it lay, on which the waves 

 divided, we may fairly assume that in the open ocean, before 

 reaching the Sandwich group, the wave had a height of 

 nearly thirty feet from trough to crest. We read, in accord- 

 ance with this explanation, that " the regurgitations of the 

 sea were violent and complex, and continued through the 

 day." 



The wave, regarded as a whole, seems to have reached 

 all the islands at the same time. Since this has not been 

 contradicted by later accounts, we are compelled to conclude 

 that the wave reached the group with its front parallel to the 



