Sea foam

“ The whole sea was one drift of foam, and the surface of the water beaten down almost flat by the excessive violence of the wind, which cut off the head of every wave as it strove to raise itself, and carried it in clouds of spray and great masses of water, driving and hurling it against any obstacle, such as our little vessel, with inconceivable fury. ”

“ The huge shells hissed over our heads, and all about us, plunging into the sea with such mighty concussions that fountains of green water arose in twenty places, and the near surface of the Atlantic became turbulent with foam. ”

“ Upon the gale she stoop’d her side,
And bounded o’er the swelling tide,
As she were dancing home;
The merry seamen laugh’d, to see 15
Their gallant ship so lustily
Furrow the green sea-foam. ”

“ Instinctively you run backward to escape what seems an impending destruction. Very likely a sheet of foam is dashed all around you, shoe-deep, but you are safe—only the foam hisses away in impotent rage. The sea has its bounds; 'hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.'" [A]
[Footnote A: A. Judd Northrup, in "Sconset Cottage Life."] ”

“ Some especial touches were put on to-day for the benefit of the ladies, and when the man aloft wished those on deck to "sheet home" the big topsail, the rascal looked down at Margaret and called "sea foam!" In the forecastle she was called "Sea Foam" during the whole trip, not because she wore a dress of cricketing flannel, but on account of her former mistake in the words. To Rankin and some others who saw the little joke, the idea seemed poetical and appropriate. ”

“ A current, much agitated, traversed it at all times from end to end. The sharpness of its turnings was favourable or unfavourable, according to the nature of the prevailing wind; sometimes it broke the swell and caused it to fall; sometimes it exasperated it. This latter effect was the most frequent. An obstacle arouses the anger of the sea, and pushes it to excesses. The foam is the exaggeration of the waves.
The stormy winds in these narrow and tortuous passages between the rocks are subjected to a similar compression, and acquire the same malignant character. ”

“ And the climbing foam receives it
To its everlasting place.
What does Arnold, Master, think you?
Whimper like a child for dread?
That's not Arnold. Foulest weather
Strongest sailors ever bred.
And this slip of taut sea-faring
Grows a man who throttles fear.
Let the storm and dark in spite now
Do their worst with valor here!
[Pg 52]
Not a reef and not a shiver,
While the wind jeers in her shrouds,
And the flauts of foam and sea-fog
Swarm upon her deck in crowds,
Flies the Scud like a mad racer ”

“ When the sea floods into the Severn estuary at high tide, two masses of foam are built up separately and make war against each other in the manner of rams, and one goes forward against the other, and they crash into each other in turn, and one separates from the other again, and they go forward again, at every tide. ”

“ The sun had risen and set thrice when the maids danced on the shore, all singing some song which they had learnt from the soft murmurings of a seashell. Each had clad her form in a small lava-lava that was made of seaweed and fastened by threaded grass about the loins. Standing on the big lumps of red coral, they all dived into the ocean, to come forth laughing, as the sea-water fell glistening from their tresses that half hid their soft feet. ‘Oh, how lovely this world really is!’ they said, as they lifted seashells to their ears, and, singing again, dived headlong into the ocean. ”

“ And yet each figure was defined so accurately that every feature, every particle of dress or accoutrement could be discerned. Even the sparkle of their eyes in that grim waste of ghostly grey was like the lambent flashes of phosphoric light in the foam of moving water cleft by a swift prow. There was no need for me to judge by the historical sequence of their attire, or by any inference of hearing; I knew in my heart that these were the ghosts of the dead who had been drowned in the waters of the Cruden Skares. ”

“ Yet salt melts ice, and so represents heat, one would think; and one can fancy that these fragments should be doubly inflammable, by their saline quality, and by the unmerciful rubbing which the waves have given them. I have noticed what warmth this churning process communicates to the clotted foam that lies in tremulous masses among the rocks, holding all the blue of ocean in its bubbles. After one's hands are chilled with the water, one can warm them in the foam. These drift-wood fragments are but the larger foam of shipwrecks. ”

“ I would hear the seawinds sigh their long-drawn accompaniment across the lovely wild-stringed harp of forest trees; a cloud would pass away from the moon and so lift a great silver curtain of ghostly light from the leafy, gnarled colonnades. And then the dusky, star-eyed prima donna of the forest would bow with a grace that was seemingly quite out of place as one listened to the wild hubbub of the fierce-eyed, tawny men who waved their arms as they cheered from the orchestral stalls of jungle, bush, and fern. ”

“ The dark, sombre green of the tropic landscape stretches for miles and miles. There lies the expanse of the sapphire-hued ocean, ending far away in the pale saffron fires of the skyline’s sunset, as, in my imagination, I softly dip my pen into the magic foams that sparkle on the coral-dust sands at my feet and sigh with the coco-palms overhead. ”

“ There was some dew in the air, and the sparkle of it upon the rail and skylight flashed crisply to the stars to the quiet rise and fall of the yacht upon the black invisible heave that yearned the whole length of her, with an occasional purr of froth at the cutwater, and a soft, rippling washing noise dying off astern into the gloom. The phosphorus in the sea was so plentiful that you might have thought yourself inside the tropics. ”

“ The blubber is then, you see, minced up, and pitched into the pots with long forks. Just fancy what a curious scene there must be while the trying-out is going on at night—the red glare of the fires, and the thick lurid smoke ascending in dense columns round the masts! Any one, not knowing what was going forward, would think, to a certainty, the ship was on fire; and then the stench of the boiling oil, hissing and bubbling in the pots—the suffocating feel of the smoke—the fierce-looking, greasy, unwashed men—I say, those who have been in a South Sea whaler will never wish to go again. ”

“ Their old symbols of the stars, drifting clouds, fading sunsets, and moons that once hung in the wide galleries of their heaven still exist in all our poetic conceptions of that which is wild and beautiful. ”

“ There was, indeed, no fear of that, for as the schooner approached the islands, numerous openings were observed. It also became evident that the gentlemen had mistaken the distance from the broken water, for they were much longer of reaching the outer skerries than they had expected, and the foam, which at first appeared like a white line, soon grew into immense masses, which thundered on these weather-worn rocks with a deep, loud, continuous roar, and burst upwards in great spouts like white steam many yards into the air. ”

“ It is a sight full of beauty. Each sheet of white foam, as it was cast aside by the ship’s side, was lighted by a thousand silver sparks caused by the phosphorescence of these pretty little creatures, quite invisible to the eye by daylight. ”

“ When a wooden ship is sailing on a wind, her weather side heaves out of the water a good deal, and, in tropical seas, the sun scorches down on the exposed timber with such merciless effect that, as soon as the vessel is put about and the once-high side is below the water-line, her open seams permit the water literally to pour in, and this keeps all hands busy at the pumps. Moreover, it makes the bilges extraordinarily unpleasant, for the stench of putrefying sea water is about the most stomach-turning odour I know. ”

“ The foam that is produced by the water dashing over the rocks floats aloft in the shape of mist; and in the calm, clear, starlight nights, the gentle northeast breezes cast a thin gauze-like veil around us and affects the glasses of our instruments. All observations of the stars seem to be forbidden. ”

“ The more she stirs it, the more it foams up; and as the volume increases, more water is added, until at last the vessel which contains it, and which may hold several gallons, is full of this foam. Then the Indians sit about it, and scraping up the foam on their fingers, draw them between their lips. The taste of the foam is sharply bitter, something like the inner bark of the red willow. I've always supposed that these berries possessed some tonic quality like quinine. There are two or three kinds of seaweed that the Indians eat. ”

“ The fire was extinguished in the only possible manner, by cutting it away from the decks, letting it gently down upon them, deluging it, so that our mast lay charred and blackened after its bath of sea-water, like a mighty serpent stretched along the ship, from stem to stern, and wrapped loosely in its shrouds. ”

“ The foaming crests of the sea were ablaze with phosphorescence, and appeared to tower above the poop as high as the main-topsail-yard, and the sight of them sweeping along after the ship was positively appalling. The wind now began to increase in violence, literally tearing off the summits of the huge waves and sending them in spindrift hurtling across the deck like showers of shot that cut the face like the lash of a whip. ”

“ Sunlight, in slanting rays, shines through the rents and fissures of the upper deck, and plays on the free flood that washes in and out of the exposed after hold; seaweed and flotsam surges on the tide, clinging to the jagged, shattered edges of the plating, and breaking away to lap in the dark recesses. To eyes that only know the lines and mould of sightly, seaworthy vessels, she seems a hopeless and distorted mass of standing iron—a sheer hulk, indeed, fit only for a lone sea-perch to gull and gannet and cormorant. ”

“ The water washed up through the scuppers, and rose high on deck. The crew sheltered themselves as best they could under the weather-bulwarks, for the seas were breaking in masses of foam over the weather-bows, deluging the decks fore and aft. The commander gazed also anxiously at the reef. The corvette darted on. Already the foam which flew over her seemed to unite with that which broke above the rocks. Still, he did not turn pale, nor did his eye quiver. In another instant she would be hurled to destruction or be free. ”

“ The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. ”

“ The aërial ocean is such open-work, that these infinitesimal billows are not much, though somewhat, broken by it; but when they reach the terraqueous globe itself, they dash into foam which goes whirling and eddying down into solids and liquids, among their wild caverns of ultra-microscopic littleness, and this foam or whirl-storm of ethereal substance is heat, if we are not much mistaken. According to its intensity, it expands by its own mere motion all grosser material. ”

“ It stands out boldly with the green waves dashing round it; and as we sat, every now and then came a deep, booming sound from beneath, like thunder, and we could see the end of a jet of spray, but nothing more. Afterwards, going back and crossing to the other side of the harbour, we saw the explanation of this. A fissure in the opposite rocks, passing underground about fifty feet, communicates with the open sea, and from this, every now and then, a body of water is sent forward violently with a loud report. ”

“ The foam here furnishes a reflecting surface, the water between the eye and it the absorbing medium.
Nothing can be more superb than the green of the Atlantic waves when the circumstances are favourable to the exhibition of the colour. As long as a wave remains unbroken no colour appears, but when the foam just doubles over the crest like an Alpine snow-cornice, under the cornice we often see a display of the most exquisite green. ”

“ The surface of the water, when struck by these gusts, is so agitated, as to be covered with foam, which is taken up by them, and flies before their fury until dispersed in vapour. Ships at anchor under high land are sometimes suddenly thrown over on their beam-ends, and the next moment recover their equilibrium, as if nothing had occurred. ”

“ At day-light, nothing could be seen to leeward but high foaming breakers; both vessels, however, bore up, keeping as close together as circumstances would allow. From the moment we entered the reef, the sight was indescribably grand and sublime; a hollow deceitful swell rearing its head as high as our tops, the spray dashing over us, and sheets of foaming water, in the midst of which black rocks were occasionally visible. ”

“ A chain of sunken rocks girded the shore in that place, breaking up the waves into innumerable whirlpools, and sending sheets of foam back upon the storm. It scarcely seemed a minute when the boat made a plunge into the midst of this terrible danger, and for an instant lay still, with the angry foam boiling around it, and the white faces of its occupants in full view. One man held the stump of a broken oar in his grasp, and with its splintered end beat against the waves, as if this frantic exertion would do them good. ”