The great ocean wave swept, as I have said, in all directions around the scene of the earth-throe. Over a large part of its course its passage was unnoted, because in the open sea the effects even of so vast an undulation could not be perceived. A ship would slowly rise as the crest of the great wave passed under her, and then as slowly sink again. This may seem strange, at first sight, when it is remembered that in reality the great sea-wave we are considering swept at the rate of three or four hundred sea-miles an hour over the larger part of the Pacific. But when the true character of ocean-waves is understood, when it is remembered that there is no transference of the water itself at this enormous rate, but simply a transmission of motion (precisely as when in a high wind waves sweep rapidly over a corn-field, while yet each cornstalk remains fixed in the ground), it will be seen that the effects of the great sea-wave could only be perceived near the shore. Even there, as we shall presently see, there was much to convey the impression that the land itself was rising and falling rather than that the deep was moved. But among the hundreds of ships which were sailing upon the Pacific when its length and breadth were traversed by the great sea-wave, there was not one in which any unusual motion was perceived. In somewhat less than three hours after the occurrence of the earthquake, the ocean-wave inundated the port of Coquimbo, on the Chilian seaboard, some 800 miles from Arica. An hour or so later it had reached Constitucion, 450 miles farther south; and here for some three hours the sea rose and fell with strange violence. Farther south, along the shore of Chili, even to the island of Chiloe, the shore-wave travelled, though with continually diminishing force, owing doubtless to the resistance which the irregularities of the shore opposed to its progress.