﻿38 Mr. R. Edmonds on 'Extraordinary Agitations 



of their keels were out of water, and he conld see under them ; 

 and at high water the waves swept over the gates into the docks, 

 a thing never known before. The cause of this unusual disturb- 

 ance was no doubt a storm from the south-west, some hundreds 

 of miles off in the Atlantic, which never reached us. These huge 

 breakers would have commanded the attention of every one, how- 

 ever unobservant, who happened to be near and in sight of them. 

 But the tide-like currents which I have described, when occur- 

 ring on an open shore would not attract the attention of any one, 

 however observant, even if he were close to them, unless he 

 watched them for some time, or unless he knew whether the or- 

 dinary tide were then coming or going, and saw that this extra- 

 ordinary current was moving in an opposite direction. This 

 quiet tide-like motion of the water up and down an open beach 

 was strikingly shown during one of the extraordinary agitations 

 of the sea in 1843, by the conduct of some children, who were 

 then amusing themselves on the beach and rocks, near the 

 Chimney Rock in Penzance, and had been there long enough to 

 observe that the sea was flowing in and out very differently 

 from usual, and at intervals of about ten or fifteen minutes. 

 Instead of running home at once and telling their parents 

 what an extraordinary thing they had seen, they preferred 

 making use of their knowledge for some new kind of play; 

 and accordingly, when they were joined on the beach by other 

 children who had not been present long enough to make the 

 same discovery as themselves, they told them to go out on the 

 rocks to see something. These new comers, therefore, suspecting 

 nothing, and observing, as they thought, that the tide was going 

 and had left the rocks dry, and not dreaming that there was any 

 possibility of the sea coming in again for some hours, went on 

 the rocks as they were told by their playfellows ; and before they 

 could return, the current surrounded them. After'waiting a few 

 minutes in a great fright lest they should be drowned, the sea 

 began again to ebb, and in a few minutes more they reached the 

 beach in safety. 



P.S. — These phenomena commence generally with an efflux 

 or retirement of the sea.' And it appears from the newspapers 

 that those accompanying the great earthquake of the 15th of 

 August last along the western coasts of South America began 

 with an efflux, as did also those on the same day in New Zealand, 

 when " the sea rushed out and in with extraordinary violence, 

 and in some places in the South Island great damage was done 

 by the sea going far over the usual high -water mark." This 

 rushing out and in of the sea in New Zealand and on the South- 

 American coast was in all probability occasioned in each place 

 by local submarine shocks in the way I have above described. 



