Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1892 — Waves Without Wind. [ARTICLE]

Waves Without Wind.

Occasionally there appears a great wave sweeping across the calm surface of the ocean in the fairest weather and when no wind 'is blowing. There are few perils of the sea more to be dreaded than such a wave. Fortunately they are very rare, yet more than once a ship has encountered one. Only a short time ago the Etruria was met by a wave of this kind, which rolled upon her like a wall of water, and, breaking against her sides, swept the deck with irresistible force, killing one sailor and seriously injuring others. A smaller and less stanch vessel might have been overwhelmed and sent to the bottom by the blow. The cause of these singular waves is believed to be some disturbance of a volcanic nature at the bottom of the sea. Volcanoes exist in the ocean as well as on land—in fact, nearly all the volcanoes known are on or near the sea coast. It is easy to see that an upheaval at the sea bottom may start a billow at the suriace of the water when we remember that huge waves have been 6ent across the Pacific (X‘ean to San Francisco by volcanic shakings of the earth on the borders of Asia. The world under water is not only three times as extensive as that which is covered only with air but it possesses many of the same great natural phenomena on a scale that is perhaps proportionately vast but of whose existence we are made aware only by such indications as the volcanic ocean waves that ships occasionally encounter. I>b. James Mabtineau, famous «.s a theologian and ethical teacher, and no les6 famous, perhaps, as the brother of Harriet Martineau, is 87 years old. Spices smell best when bruised. — Bogatzky.