HEIGHT 123 



This last instate is the greatest breaker height that we have found 

 recorded in print. But we have no doubt that breakers are sometimes 

 as high as this on the Pacific coast of the United States from northern 

 California to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, where the surf is as heavy 

 as it is anywhere in the world, to judge from the very considerable 

 depths over which it develops there during the stormy season. Thus 

 sea captains of long experience, and local residents, as well as mem- 

 bers of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, of the United 

 States Coast and Geodetic Survey, of the United States Lighthouse 

 Service, and of the United States Revenue Marine Service (the two 

 latter services have since been incorporated in the United States Coast 

 Guard) have reported breakers in depths as great as 42 to 54 feet, and 

 perhaps even to 60 feet on the San Francisco Bar; at 56 to 57 feet at 

 Cape Mendocino, California; commonly at 42 to 45 feet, sometimes 

 at 60 feet on the Columbia River Bar during severe onshore gales; and 

 at 42 to 60 feet at various points along the coasts of Oregon and 

 Washington (for further references to these instances, and to their 

 source, see p. 126). Assuming that the heights of the breakers aver- 

 aged about one-half to two-thirds as great as the depth of water 

 where the surf developed, a ratio usual when the wind is blowing 

 strongly onshore (p. 130), the foregoing instances suggest a surf com- 

 monly 21 to 35 feet high in stormy weather, occasionally 30 to 40 feet 

 high, and perhaps even as high as 45 feet during the most severe 

 gales. And surf no doubt as high, because breaking at depths equally 

 great, has also been reported in the North Sea off the coast of Holland, 

 off the Guianas. and along Yucatan in the Caribbean, as well as in 

 other parts of the world (p. 127). 



In localities where the state of the sea depends chiefly on the wind 

 distribution nearby, and where long swells traveling from afar are 

 unusual, the surf is usually highest when the wind is strong onshore, 

 as might be expected, and very low or nonexistent otherwise. And 

 the height of the breakers in stormy weather is governed by the effec- 

 tive fetch at the time. The surf, for example, is seldom more than 

 12 to 15 feet high anywhere along the beaches of the northeastern 

 United States, because it is very unusual for a strong easterly wind 

 to blow (and to persist) over any fixed area of large extent in middle 

 or high latitudes of the western North Atlantic. But a heavy surf 

 may develop, during periods of calm, from old swells on coasts re- 

 mote from stormy regions, or even during periods of offshore wind, 

 if these are not too strong. Thus Wallace 38 wrote, that at the harbor 

 of Ampanan, on Lombok, in the East Indies "Where we lay anchored, 

 about a quarter of a mile from the shore, not the slightest swell was 

 perceptible, but on approaching nearer undulations began, which 



38 Wallace, A. R. 1869. Malay Archipelago, vol. 1, p. 228. 



