118 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



being a little matter of five feet of water in the 

 hold. 



But of all the exhibitions of waves the ocean can 

 afford, there is none that can compare with that of the 

 hurricane centre, except, of course, the utterly ab- 

 normal earthquake wave, which is a cosmic pheno- 

 menon for which earth and not ocean is responsible. 

 In the height of a tropical hurricane the wind blows 

 with such fury that the sea cannot rise, hard though it 

 may seem to believe. Of course, if the wind were to 

 blow hard in one steady direction for any length of time, 

 doubtless the waves would rise to an abnormal height, 

 running true ; but, as I have before pointed out, in a 

 hurricane the wind blows round a given centre, and a 

 stationary object is therefore continually changing its 

 direction. No words can give the most meagre idea 

 of the force with which this terrible circling wind is 

 driving around its axis ; even if experienced, the mind 

 retains but the faintest impression, quite uncom- 

 municable by words, of its power. But about the 

 centre of this vast area of tempest there is a spot of 

 only a few miles in diameter, a sort of funnel in the 

 atmosphere, as it were, wherein there is practically 

 no wind, the opposing masses of air in motion having 

 neutralized each other's force. Within this calm area 

 the waves, held down by the enormous pressure of the 

 wind without it, find themselves suddenly freed from 

 restraint, free to exert their power. So they rush into 

 it at mad speed from every direction, and, meeting, 

 hurl themselves about in vast broken masses as if the 

 ocean had run mad. The surface of a fiercely boiling 

 pot filled with water, magnified ten thousand times, 

 will give a faint resemblance to this amazing spectacle, 



