Just now there is a long, deep roll coming in from the southwest, and I am earnestly looking for some of those immense waves for which the South Pacific is famous. According to sailors, they usually occur two or three days after new and full moon; and as we had a new moon last night, perhaps we will see some of these rollers. This reminds me, however, that scientists have determined, after protracted observations, that the moon’s phases have no influence at all on the weather. Sailors often say during a spell of bad weather, “Well, there’s a change in the moon to-night; we’ll have a fine day to-morrow”; and if chance supports their remark, heaven couldn’t shake their belief. This heavy sea that is met with here is generally not at all ugly; only a deep heave-up from the southward, often without wind, and is said to be one of the most impressive of all oceanic phenomena. The South Atlantic as well as the Pacific is also visited periodically by immense seas during calm weather. At St. Helena and Ascension they are called “rollers,” while at Fernando de Noronha and on the West African coast they are known by the Portuguese name of “calemmas.” They seem to occur chiefly in January, and, strange to say, they invariably came from the northwest. The quotation that follows is from the pen of Captain S. P. Oliver, who visited St. Helena in 1881 in one of the Union steamers: “These rollers set in from the northwest on Thursday, January 13, with unusual severity, but lulled somewhat on the following day, Friday, only to recur with abnormal force on Saturday, attaining their maximum strength on Saturday night, so that the spectacle on Sunday morning was grand and magnificent, while the weather was bright and calm. It was surprising to see the spray of these deep ocean waves hurled by sheer force, for there was no wind, like fountains over the huge cliffs of Goat Pound Ridge and Horse Pasture, which rise perpendicularly seven hundred feet sheer out of the sea. The force of these enormous billows was spent by Sunday night, and gradually subsided into the normal calm on Monday morning.” At our present rate of sailing a fortnight would see us on the equator, but if we cross it in three weeks it will be fine work. What sort of luck are we going to have between these westerly winds and the southeast Trades? That is one of the crucial points of the voyage that remain, another being, how far south will the northeast Trades blow?