One brisk March morning, in the year 1848, the brave Steam-Ship Hibernia rolled about in the most intoxicated fashion on the broad Atlantic, in north latitude fifty-one, and west longitude thirty-eight, fifty—the wind blowing a hard gale from the west-southwest. To most of the passengers the grandeur of the waters was a mockery, the fine bearing of the ship only a delusion and a snare. Every thing was made tight on deck; if any passenger had left a toothpick on one of the seats, he would assuredly have found it lashed to a near railing. Rope was coiled about every imaginable item; and water dripped from every spar of the gallant vessel. Now it seemed as though she were traveling along through a brilliant gallery, flanked on either side by glittering walls of water; now she climbed one of the crested walls, and an abyss dark and terrible as the famous Maelstrom, which can't be found any where, yawned to receive her. The snorts of the engine seemed to defy the angry waters; and occasionally when a monster wave coiled about the ship, and thundered against her, she staggered for a moment, only to renew the battle with fresh energy.

The cooks and stewards went placidly through their several daily avocations on board this rolling, fighting, shaking craft. If they had been Belgravian servants, or club-house waiters, they could not have performed their duties with more profound unconcern. Their coolness appeared nothing less than heroic to the poor tumbled heaps of clothes with human beings inside, who were scattered about the cabins below. An unhappy wight, who had never before been five miles from Boston, was anxiously inquiring of the chief steward the precise time in the course of that evening that the vessel might be expected to founder; while another steward, with provoking pertinacity, was asking how many would dine in the saloon at six, with the same business-like unconcern, as if the ship were gliding along on glass. So tremendous was the tossing, so extreme the apparent uncertainty of any event except a watery terminus to all expectation, that this sort of coolness appeared almost wicked.

Then there was a monster in British form actually on deck—not braving, it was said, but tempting the storm to sweep him into eternity. He astonished even the ship's officers. The cook did not hesitate to venture a strong opinion against the sanity of a man who might, if he chose, be snugly ensconced in the cabin out of harm's way, but who would remain upon deck, in momentary danger of being blown overboard. The cook's theory was not ill supported by the subject of it; for he was continually placing himself in all manner of odd places and grotesque postures. Sometimes he scrambled up on the cuddy-roof; then he rolled down again on the saloon deck; now he got himself blown up on the paddle-box; that was not high enough for him, for when the vessel sunk into a trough of the sea, he stood on tip-toe, trying to look over the nearest wave. A consultation was held in the cuddy, and a resolution was unanimously passed that the amateur of wind and water (which burst over him every minute) was either an escaped lunatic or—a College Professor.

It was resolved nem. con. that he was the latter; and from that moment nobody was surprised at any thing he might choose to do, even while the Hibernia was laboring in what the mate was pleased to call the most "lively" manner. The Professor, however, to the disgust of the sufferers below, who thought it was enough to feel the height of the waves, without going to the trouble of measuring them, pursued his observations in the face of the contempt of the official conclave above mentioned. He took up his position on the cuddy roof, which was exactly twenty-three feet three inches above the ship's line of flotation, and there watched the mighty mountains that sported with the brave vessel. He was anxious to ascertain the height of these majestic waves, but he found that the crests rose so far above the horizon from the point where he was standing, that it was utterly impossible, without gaining a greater height for observation, that he could arrive at any just estimate on the subject. His observations from the cuddy-roof proved, however, beyond a doubt, that the majority of these rolling masses of water attained a height of considerably more than twenty-four feet, measuring from the trough of the sea to the crests of the waves. But the Professor was not satisfied with this negative proof; and in the pursuit of his interesting inquiry, did not feel inclined to be baffled. It is impossible to know what the secret thoughts of the men at the wheel were, when the valiant observer announced his intention of making the best of his way from the cuddy-roof to the larboard paddle-box. Now he was to be seen tumbling about with the motion of the ship; at one moment clinging to a chain-box; at the next, throwing himself into the arms of the second mate. Now he is buried in spray, and a few minutes afterward his spare form is seen clinging to the rails which connect the paddle-boxes.

Despite the storm without, a calm mathematical process is going on within the mind of that ardent observer. The Professor knew he was standing at a height of twenty-four feet nine inches above the flotation mark of the ship: and allowing five feet six inches as the height of his eye, he found the elevation he had obtained to be altogether thirty feet three inches. He now waited till the vessel subsided fairly for a few minutes into the trough of the sea in an even and upright position, while the nearest approaching wave had its maximum altitude. Here he found also, that at least one-half part of the wave intercepted by a considerable elevation his view of the horizon. He declared that he frequently observed long ranges extending one hundred yards on one or both sides of the ship—the sea then coming right aft—which rose so high above the visible horizon, as to form an angle estimated at two to three degrees when the distance of the wave's crest, was about a hundred yards off. This distance would add about thirteen feet to the level of the eye. This immense elevation occurred about every sixth wave. Now and then, when the course of a gigantic wave was impertinently interfered with by another liquid giant, and they thundered together, their breaking crests would shoot upward at least ten or fifteen feet higher—about half the height of the monument—and then pour down a mighty flood upon the poor Professor in revenge for his attempt to measure their majesties. No quantity of salt water, however, could wash him from his post, till he had satisfactorily proved, by accurate observation, that the average wave which passed the vessel was fully equal to the height of his eye—or thirty feet three inches—and that the mean highest waves, not including the fighting or broken waves, were about forty-three feet above the level of the hollow occupied at the moment by the ship.

Satisfied at length of the truth of his observations, the Professor, half-pickled by the salt water, and looking, it must be confessed, very cold and miserable, descended to the cabin. Throughout dinner-time a conversation was kept up between the Professor and the captain—the latter appearing to be about the only individual on board who took any interest whatever in these scientific proceedings. The ladies, one and all, vowed that the Professor was a monster, only doing "all this stuff" in mockery of their sufferings. Toward night the wind increased to a hurricane; the ship trembled like a frightened child before the terrible combat of the elements. Night, with her pall, closed in the scene: it was a wild and solemn time. Toward morning the wind abated. For thirty hours a violent northwest gale had swept over the heaving bosom of the broad Atlantic.

This reflection hastened the dressing and breakfasting operations of the Professor, who tumbled up on deck at about ten o'clock in the morning. The storm had been subdued for several hours, and there was a visible decrease in the height of the waves. He took up his old position on the cuddy-roof, and soon observed, that, even then, when the sea was comparatively quiet, ten waves overtook the vessel in succession, which all rose above the apparent horizon; consequently they must have been more than twenty-three feet—probably about twenty-six feet—from ridge to hollow. From the larboard paddle-box, to which the Professor once more scrambled, he observed that occasionally four or five waves in succession rose above the visible horizon—hence they must have been more than thirty feet waves. He also observed that the waves no longer ran in long ridges, but presented more the form of cones of moderate elongation.

Having so far satisfied himself as to the height of Atlantic waves in a gale of wind (the Professor's estimate must not be taken as the measurement of the highest known waves, but simply as that of a rough Atlantic sea), he directed his attention to minuter and more difficult observations. He determined to measure the period of time occupied by the regular waves in overtaking the ship, their width from crest to crest, and the rate of their traveling. The first point to be known was the speed of the ship; this he ascertained to be nine knots. His next object was to note her course in reference to the direction of the waves. He found that the true course of the vessel was east, and that the waves came from the west-northwest, so that they passed under the vessel at a considerable angle. The length of the ship was stated to be two hundred and twenty feet. Provided with this information the Professor renewed his observations. He proceeded to count the seconds the crest of a wave took to travel from stern to stem of the vessel; these he ascertained to be six. He then counted the time which intervened between the moment when one crest touched the stern of the vessel, and the next touched it, and he found the average interval to be sixteen seconds and a fraction. These results gave him at once the width between crest and crest. As the crest traveled two hundred and twenty feet (or the length of the vessel) in six seconds, and sixteen seconds elapsed before the next crest touched the stern, it was clear that the wave was nearly three times the length of the vessel; to write accurately, there was a distance of six hundred and five feet from crest to crest.

The Professor did not forget that the oblique course of the ship elongated her line over the waves; this elongation he estimated at forty-five feet, reducing the probable average distance between crest and crest to five hundred and fifty-nine feet.

Being quite satisfied with the result of this experiment, the hardy Professor, still balancing himself on his giddy height, to the wonder and amusement of the sailors, found that the calculations he had already made did not give him the actual velocity of the waves. A wave-crest certainly passed from stern to stem in six seconds, but then the ship was traveling in the same direction, at the rate of nine geographical miles per hour, or 15.2 feet per second; this rate the Professor added to the former measure, which gave 790.5 feet for the actual distance traversed by the wave in 16.5 seconds, being at the rate of 32.67 English miles per hour. This computation was afterward compared with calculations made from totally different data by Mr. Scott Russell, and found to be quite correct.

With these facts the Professor scrambled from the larboard paddle-box of the Hibernia. He had also made some observations on the forms of waves. When the wind blows steadily from one point, they are generally regular; but when it is high and gusty, and shifts from point to point, the sea is broken up, and the waves take a more conical shape, and assume fantastical crests. While the sea ran high, the Professor observed now and then a ridge of waves extending from about a quarter to a third of a mile in length, forming, as it were, a rampart of water. This ridge was sometimes straight, and sometimes bent as of a crescent form, with the central mass of water higher than the rest, and not unfrequently with two or three semi-elliptical mounds in diminishing series on either side of the highest peak.

When the wind had subsided, a few of the bolder passengers crawled upon deck in the oddest imaginable costumes. They had not much to encounter, for about a third part of the greater undulations averaged only twenty-four feet, from crest to hollow, in height. These higher waves could be seen and selected from the pigmy waves about them, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the ship.

The Professor had been very unpopular on board while the stormy weather lasted, and the ladies had vowed that he was a sarcastic creature, who would have his little joke on the gravest calamities of life, but as the waves decreased in bulk, and the wind lulled, and the sun shone, and the men took off their oil-skin coats, and the cabin-windows were opened, the frowns of the fair voyagers wore off. Perfect good-will was general before the ship sighted Liverpool; and even the cook, as he prepared the last dinner for the passengers, was heard to declare (in confidence to one of the stokers) that, after all, there might be something worth knowing in the Professor's observations.

When the Professor landed at Liverpool, he would, on no account, suffer the carpet-bag, containing his calculations, to be taken out of his sight. Several inquisitive persons, however, made the best use of their own eyes, to ascertain the name of the extraordinary observer, and found it to be legibly inscribed with the well-known name of Scoresby.

That his investigations may be the more readily impressed on the reader's mind, we conclude with a summary of them. It would seem from Dr. Scoresby's intrepid investigations, that the highest waves of the Atlantic average in