Splash

“ The waves advance and splash lazily against a mass of grey stones; they roll slowly upon the beach and the pebbles make a jingling sound; they are gentle waves, as clear as glass, and there is no foam on them. ”

“ Marks are given for pace, style, sticking to the plank, and throwing up the biggest and widest splash. Sometimes a kind of gallows, perhaps twenty feet high, is erected on the course, and there is a round of applause if the splash reaches up to or above it. ”

“ There was the water to splash and paddle in, with stones for those who liked to practice hardening their feet, and patches of sand where one could enjoy that delicious half-tickling sensation of feet sinking and sand oozing up between all one's toes ”

“ What is the reason for the strange leaps they make into the air, falling back on to the water with a thudding splash that can be heard a mile away? It is usually done by night, a circumstance that adds to the strangeness of this sudden obtrusion upon our minds of the existence of a scarcely known world beneath the water, which we, in our preoccupation with our own half of the world, had almost forgotten. ”

“ Drop a stone into a pool, there is a momentary splash, a bubble on the surface, and circle after circle spreads, and widens and weakens, till all is still and smooth as though the water had never been disturbed ”

“ A craving of my nature has been satisfied, a grief has found distraction. As for the rest, any child that throws a stone into the water with all his force can make a splash; but he would be a fool indeed if he supposed that the splash was a sign that he had turned a stream. ”

“ The stone that is thrown with a great velocity makes neither quite the same sound nor the same kind of splash as a slow-falling stone, and though in the light of our present knowledge we may conjecture the kind of difference to be expected, yet experience has taught me that the subject is so full of unexpected turns that it is better to wait for the photographic record than to speculate without it. ”

“ mingling various walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-tops. ”

“ If, for example, a particular stage of the splash is photographed when the timing sphere falls just four feet to the gap, then by raising its releasing-lever about two-fifths of an inch, the laws of falling bodies tell us that we shall postpone the flash by just one-thousandth of a second, and the next photograph will accordingly reveal a stage just so much later. ”

“ Very beautiful forms of the same type indeed, but different in detail, are those produced by a drop of water falling into the lighter and more mobile liquid, petroleum.
It will now be interesting to turn to the splash that is produced when a solid sphere, such as a child's marble, falls into water. ”

“ In some places the mud is swept nearly clean away, and then you go splashing along, while always in a curious, echoing, musical way, comes the sound of running water, dripping water, plashing water, seeming always to be playing one melancholy strange tune, sad and sweet, and peculiar. ”

“ The two principles that I have now explained, viz. the principle of the skin-tension, and the principle of the instability and spontaneous segmentation of a liquid cylinder, jet, or annulus, will go far to explain much that we shall see in any splash, but it is well that the reader should realize how much has been left unexplained. Why, for example, should the crater rise so suddenly and vertically immediately round the drop as it enters? ”

“ If we keep to the same size of drop and increase the fall to something over a yard, no great change occurs in the nature of the splash, but the emergent column is rather higher and thinner and shows a tendency to split into drops. ”

“ But although the drop has fallen from a greater height than in the previous splash, the energy of the impact, instead of being expended in raising the same amount of liquid to a greater height, is now spent in lifting a much thicker adherent column to about the same height as in the last splash. There was sometimes noticed, as seen in Fig. 9, a tendency in the water to flow up past the milk, which, still comparatively unmixed with water, rides triumphant on the top of the emergent column. ”

“ But when we are watching the splash made by the fall of a liquid drop, instead of a solid sphere, there is a new and more serious source of difficulty. For the drop as it lies on the smoked glass cup is not perfectly spherical, but is flattened by its own weight, as shown in Fig. ”

“ By wetting the surface of a smooth sphere we can always convert a smooth or "sheath" splash into a rough or "basket" splash. Thus when the ivory sphere (which when dry and well-polished gave, with a fall of 60 cm., the splash of Series XI, p. 97) , was allowed to fall wet into the liquid, all other circumstances remaining the same, the splash of Series XIII, p. ”

“ What the mud had been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could say? But it seemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in five minutes to have splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam. ”

“ I have seen the whole body of the wave rise in one white, vertical, broad fountain, eighty feet above the sea, half of it beaten so fine as to be borne away by the wind, the rest turning in the air when exhausted, and falling back with a weight and crash like that of an enormous waterfall. ”

“ Deliverance from shoes and stockings, the first thrill of pleasure and surprise at the cool touch of the water, the wild rush along the brim, the dainty advance till the sea covers the little ankles, the tremulous waiting with an air of defiance as the wave deepens round till it touches the knee, the firm line with which the dabblers grasp hand in hand and face the advancing tide, the sudden panic, the break, the disorderly flight, the tears and laughter, the run after the wave as it retreats again, the fresh advance and defiance—this is the paradise of the dabbler. ”

“ We beheld an immense body of water fall two hundred and fifty feet, dashing from rock to rock, and casting a spray which formed a mist around it, in the midst of which hung a multitude of sunbows, which faded or became unspeakably vivid, as the inconstant sun shone through the clouds. ”

“ Here is the spot to see and hear the deluge of water, all sparkling with foam, in the mild light of the moon, come thundering from aloft, and threatening every instant to overwhelm the spectator in the boiling flood. If terror be a source of the sublime, there certainly is some degree of this emotion, mixed with the contemplation of a vast mass of water rolling down from a great height, apparently in a direct course towards us. ”

“ As the immense body of water leaps over this vast precipice, it breaks into a soft spray, which waves like a plume in the wind. At times, when the rays of the sun strike this spray, a rainbow is formed which stretches itself across the deep chasm, and produces a beautiful effect. ”

“ But when people are happy in this thirsty land water will not be far off; and in the school of Giorgione, the presence of water—the well, or marble-rimmed pool, the drawing or pouring of water, as the woman pours it from a pitcher with her jewelled hand in the Fête Champêtre, listening, perhaps, to the cool sound as it falls, blent with the music of the pipes—is as characteristic, and almost as suggestive, as that of music itself. ”

“ Fastening our attention for the moment on surface water waves, the first question we shall ask ourselves is—What is a wave? If we take our station on a high cliff looking down on the sea, on some clear day, when the wind is fresh, we see the waves on its surface like green rounded ridges racing forward, and it appears at first sight as if these elevations were themselves moving masses of water. ”

“ The resounding impact of water on rocks, the clouds of water-smoke which rise high in the air, and the river below churned into a whirling cream of eddy and surge and backwater, unite in a composite effect, at once magnificent and bewildering. ”

“ Black clouds sink down towards the sea, violent waterspouts suck up the water in spiral columns which spread out above like the crowns of pine-trees, and deluges of rain come down, lasting sometimes for weeks. Everything becomes wet and sodden, and it is useless to try to light a fire with matches. ”

“ So the white spray rushes along the low broken wall of rocks, the sun gleams on the flying fragments of the wave, again it sinks, and the rhythmic motion holds the mind, as an invisible force holds back the tide. ”

“ See where, broadest and stillest, the wave expands to the full smile of the setting sun, and the willow that trembles on the breeze, and the oak that stands firm in the storm, are reflected back, peaceful both, from the clear glass of the tides. ”

“ During the day we used to stand and observe the swell surging into the large cavities formed by continual action, and tossed out again, as if the rocks had said with Phineas, ‘Friend, thee isn’t wanted here;’ while the whole water around, nothing daunted, was boiling and excited, dancing and glancing and sparkling in the sun as if in glee, or in the spirit of fun and mischief. ”

“ The movement of the water in itself exercises fascinations over a boy. There are always bubbles, based strongly in froth, sailing gallantly along.—One speculates how long a bubble will swim before it hits a rock, or is washed into nothing by an eddy, or is becalmed in a sheltered corner to ride at jaunty anchor with a navy of similar delicate tonnage. ”

“ The shining drops, each one perfect in itself and changing colour with the shifting of the light, fall through the fingers back into the pool, with a faint suggestion of music in the sound. The circle widens outward, and presently the water is still again. ”

“ The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, until, after hours of this labor, the cut is made completely through from sea to pond. ”

“ The fall is the finest I have seen, from the volume of its foaming water, and the violence with which it leaps from crag to crag through the ravine it has hollowed till it makes its last bound of one hundred and twenty feet, and from the basin which receives it, the spray mounts like steam. ”

“ The exhausted swimmer, reaching the land, falls prone on it, and blesses it; but the out-going swimmer, full of strength, spurns the land, and only loves the high-crested wave, the abyss of the deep sea. ”

“ The flying of the spray declares the loudness of the wind; and though a cheering glimpse of sunshine appears to illumine the land, yet the dark cloud, which seems to rest upon the waters to the right, sufficiently informs us of the gloominess of the prospect when looking towards the sea. ”

“ There thou wilt find an open space, and in the midst of it a tall tree. Under the tree is a fountain, and by the fountain a marble slab, and on the slab a bowl of silver, with a silver chain. Dip the bowl in the fountain, and throw the water on the slab, and thou wilt hear a might peal of thunder, till heaven and earth seem trembling with the noise. After the thunder will come hail, so fierce that scarcely canst thou endure it and live, for the hailstones are both large and thick. ”

“ A single thing still mechanically occupied her ear; above her head, the dampness was filtering through the mouldy stones of the vault, and a drop of water dropped from them at regular intervals. She listened stupidly to the noise made by this drop of water as it fell into the pool beside her. ”

“ A proud beauty turns toward a fountain, light draperies slip away from her superb form, 381and with a graceful gesture of idleness she pours back into the fountain a tinkling jet from a crystal pitcher, while she bends to note the ripple and catch the pleasant, idle sound. ”

“ The sound of the pipes is carried over the water and pulses to the ears, inflaming the imagination with the sorcery of its cadences and stirring the blood by its bold rhythm. The gentle breeze brings the scent of many flowers to the nostrils, and with these come drifting thoughts and undefined fancies, so that presently the busy considerations of the day are lulled and forgotten. ”

“ We had often thought and talked about swimming to the shore from wrecks on the ocean; but since we saw the waters we think swimming is but a faint hope; for when the breeze is so light that it is hardly noticeable the waters toss a foot high, and when the wind blows a little they roll several feet high, and at no time is the surface still and smooth. ”

“ The slope of the waters was ex- cessive. I began to feel that we were no longer go- ing down a slope; we were falling. I felt as one does in a dream, going down bodily— falling ; falling; falling I I felt that the hands of my uncle and Hans were vigorously clasping my arms. Suddenly, after a lapse of time scarcely appreciable, I felt something like a shock. The raft had not struck a bard body, but had suddenly been checked in its course. A water- spout, a liquid column of water, fell upon us. ”

“ Painters have here expended their utmost skill. Whether it is the tiny ripple that dies along the curving sands, or the merry, rustling, crested surf that hurries on to wanton in the rocky pools, or the storm billow that rushes wildly against an iron-bound coast to spurt aloft its sheets of spray or to hurl its threatening mass on the trembling strand—in each and every form the wave is a moving miracle. ”

“ These drops, which on falling glisten like points of gold and sound like the notes of a musical instrument, unite on the turf and murmuring, murmuring with a sound like that of bees humming about the flowers, glide on through the gravel, and form a rill and contend with the obstacles in their way, and gather volume and leap and flee and run, sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with sighs, until they fall into a lake. ”

“ A plunge, as of one leaping from a high elevation into the pond—a quick, bold swimmer from the shore—a dark-skinned face, with long black hair that floats behind it on the water—a breast gleaming with bright spangles—a body clad in bead-embroidered garments—a man? ”