THE CLOUDS AND WAVES 109 



ball upon the smooth surface of a table on shipboard, 

 when the effect of the swell is at once evident. For 

 this reason there is a large amount of poetic licence 

 in the verse of the old ballad 



" No stir in the air, no swell on the sea, 

 The ship was as still as ship might be ; 

 Her sails from heaven received no motion, 

 Her keel was steady in the ocean." 



When the wind rises there is at once to be seen a 

 series of tiny ripples like irregular furrows along the 

 hitherto smooth surface, infant waves that under the 

 glowing sunlight look wonderfully pretty. The wind 

 increases, and with it the size of the wavelets, which 

 presently fling from their miniature crests little 

 feathers of sparkling spray that glisten like showers 

 of diamonds in the sunshine, producing the many- 

 dimpled smile of ocean spoken of by the Greek poet. 

 Very curious and interesting, too, is the behaviour 

 of these wavelets when the wind is uncertain in its 

 direction and irregular in its force. They rise and 

 fall confusedly, showing on a small scale the move- 

 ments of the broken and irregular sea caused by a 

 shift of wind in a gale, or the wind blowing across a 

 strongly-running current, as mentioned a little while 

 back. If, however, the wind is steady in direction 

 and increasing in force, the ridges of water rise higher 

 and the spaces between them grow wider, until at the 

 height of the gale in the open ocean the sight is 

 terribly grand, and so impressive that the greatly 

 exaggerated expressions, "seas running mountains 

 high" and "mountainous seas," have been and are 

 still used to denote the presence of waves whose 

 maximum measured height from the sea surface has 



