Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1893 — Havoc of Great Waves. [ARTICLE]

Havoc of Great Waves.

The sea has in store one danger that the landsman never sees. Like the voyager he may receive a visit from a cyclone, but he knows nothing of the power and terror of the great waves. Uniting in themselves the force of a flood and that of a tornado, they are appalling and resistless. The experience of the Normannia, which suffered severe damage from the visit of one of these monsters of the deep, recalls that of other vessels. But this wave was slight compared with the waves that they have encountered. While it injured only several of the Normannia’s crew, the wave that struck the Italian bark Rosina in October, 1888, swept every man aboard but one into the sea; he escaped only because he was an invalid below. A hundred persons lost their lives from the wave encountered by the steamer San Francisco in December, 1853, says the Rochester Courier.

The height of these waves can hardly be realized. The one encountered by the Umbria five years ago rose to the top of her masthead, fifty feet above the sea. Several waves measured by Capt. Kiddle of the Celtic, in January, 1875, roSe to the height of seventy feet and moved at the rate of twentyfive miles an hour. Equally high waves were observed by Admiral Fitzroy, of the English navy, off the Cape of Good Hope. The appalling height of 100 feet was reached by the waves that Dumont d’Urville saw in the Southern Sea. Of course nothing could withstand the weight and force of these masses of water. Under them the most powerful vessel ever built would scarcely be more than an eggshell. There is no doubt that many of the ships that have gone to sea never to return have fallen victims to their pitiless and resistless force. As to the origin of the great waves there has of late been some interesting speculation. It has been discovered that they are confined to the temperate latitudes. In these latitudes it has been discovered further that the surface of the ocean is .often struck during storms by powerful downward currents. The conclusion is drawn from these two facts that the waves in question were the products of these vertical currents. Students of the subject claim in support of this conclusion that the most powerful wind blowing over the surface of the sea could not raise a crest above twentyfive feet