Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1884 — THE HEIGHT OF WAVES. [ARTICLE]

THE HEIGHT OF WAVES.

The Tallest Seas in the World Bun Off Capo Horn. Many experiments have been made to measure the height of 'waves in all conditions of weather. One authority goes as high as sixty-four feet and another as low as five feet, giving it as his reason that the peinetrating power of wind can not reach below that depth. Of this philosopher it may be presumed that he was a martyr to sea-sickness, and that he must have contented I himself with making his calculations in his study. On the other hand, a height of sixty-fottr feet is almost as absurd, though it is more in correspondence than five feet can possibly be with our conception of the altitude of the majestic surges which roll under the impulse of storms of wind along the surface of the great oceans. It is true that the earthquake wave has been known to rise to sixty feet; yet surges of this kind are happily scarce, since when they occur they are not only in the habit of razing whole towns upon the coast line where they break, but of carrying some of the vessels they may encounter at anchor in the neighborhood to the. distance of a day’s walk inland. Practical experience, however, will look with suspicion upon most of the scientific theories touching the altitude and velocity of waves. Prof. Airy’s table couples speed with dimensions, and, as a sample of his calculations, it may be shown that a wave 100,000 feet in breadth will travel at the rate of 533.90 feet per second in water that is 10,000 feet deep. This is possible, but it is difficult to accept such conclusions as exact. At all events, there is nothing more deceptive than the height of waves. 'The tallest seas in the world run off Cape Horn, where, whether the wind blows east or west, they have a holiday ground within a belt of 8 or 10 degrees that compasses the globe without the intervention of a break of land. Any man who has run, say, before a strong westerly gale round the Horn will know the magnitude of the seas which follow his ship. Viewed from the stern when the vessel sinks in the trough, the on-coming sea that is about to underrun the ship and lift her soaring to the flying heavens will seem to heave its rushing summit to the height of the mizzen-top; but when the summit is gained by the observer, and the Waves viewed from there, it will then be seen that these crests which from the deck looked a long way up, will now appear to be a long way down. It is a common shore-going phrase that the seas run “mountain high.” The idea implied is not very generally accepted by sailors, though the term may be sometimes used by them for convenience. The truth is, if waves were as tall as they are popularly supposed to be, no ship could by any possibility live in them. They are lofty to the fancy, because at sea they are usually surveyed from low freeboard. To a spectator on a steamer, with a six-foot height of side, an Atlantic or Pacific surge would necessarily appear as a mountain as compared to the aspect it would take from the deck of an old line-of-battle ship, with a thirty-foot “dip,” or from one of those lofty, glazed, and castellated structures wliich in former times took six months to jog soberly from the Thames to the Hooghly.— London Telegraph.

Sally Green’s Visit to a Saw Mill. Well, last Monday pap hitched up the old boss in the lite wagin, and I put on my yaller dress and green sunbunnit, and we went to Caledony to see the mil. We left the boss at Soldier’s tavern, and walked over to it. It ,is a big thing (the mill is). Well, the first man we seen was a boy. “Is • that a nigger,” says I. “No,” says pap, “that’s the blacksmit.” Then we went in on a bridge, and went in the mill. There was lots of wheels, all kinds, going like everything. There was a man with a biled shirt on, cleanin’ up as if he expected company. Then we went to a little mill on the cide. Down stares there was a young man layin’ slabs on a table (he smiled at me). Then another feller took them and pushed them ginst a saw that cut it to peeces. (Pap said they are bolts; I thought bolts was irun.) And another feller pulled them away (he was a nice fellow, too). Then a feller with a red an’ black shurt on put them on the table agin, and another big feller (he looked awful green) put them through two more saws, and another feller keched them (he looked kinder bashful, and I couldn’t see hfe face, but I knew him all the same; he used to try to cut round my sister Kate). After that pap says they are lath. Then another big, long feller took them and tied them with a rope and piled them up, and we seen a man poundin’ a saw with a hamer; he had on an old straw hat and specks. His specks was broke and tied up with a shu string. Pap asked him who broke th.m, and he ‘ said painter. “Goodness sakes alive!” says I. “d<KPainters come in the mill ?” “les,” say? he, “the bdys seen one the other nite, and Shird (whosoever that is) was most scart to deth.” Wile we was there, there was a short feller went by; he lookt like the jack of clubs (don’t think I play cards), and then the mill whisled, and the men went up to dinner, and we did not go up stares, but I will go again to see; but I will never forget that young man that pulls • them slabs, and if he will come up sum Sunday I will give him all the buttermilk he can drink.— Breakfast Table.