114 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



and naught remains of them but hissing foam, which 

 the exultant gale snatches up and scatters in minute 

 spray many miles inland, or shreds into spindrift over 

 the sea beyond. 



Immense and awe-inspiring, however, as are the 

 regular waves of the great ocean, and dangerous as 

 they must always be to vessels that are weak or badly 

 handled, they are, by reason of their regularity, far less 

 dangerous, generally speaking, than much smaller seas 

 which are irregular and less to be depended upon, as, 

 for instance, in such restricted waters as those of the 

 English Channel and North Sea, where a series of true 

 waves can never be found, owing to the conflicting 

 currents of comparatively high velocity, which will 

 not permit the waves to run regularly. When this is 

 the case, the strain upon a vessel is much increased, 

 since the impact of the waves upon her does not admit 

 of her being handled so as to receive it in the best 

 way for her to resist. It is to a sailor an almost 

 pathetic sight to see a good ship struggling against 

 not one, but a host of enemies ; not able to face an 

 organized opposition for which she may make prepara- 

 tion, but subject to the all-round attacks of a dis- 

 orderly mob, each member of which, though acting 

 independently, has apparently the same end in view, 

 destruction. No doubt the high, conflicting, and 

 dangerous seas raised by the opposing action of winds 

 and currents have been responsible for the fables told 

 among the imaginative ancients of whirlpools, such as 

 the Maelstrom, which were popularly supposed to 

 draw ships down into the bowels of the earth and 

 eject them, sometimes entire, but more frequently in 

 fragments some distance away. Eemernbering the 



