This statement about the possible destructive effect of the sea waves were they to move bodily started one of the hottest arguments ever contested in the fo'c'sle of the _Fuller_. Tired and worn as we were, the greater part of an afternoon watch below was taken up in assailing my position. Australia could not see that I was right; even my staunch pal Frenchy doubted it. Finally I brought out my trusty "Wrinkles in Practical Navigation" by that sailor's friend, the late Captain S. T. S. Lecky, who added laurels to the name of the English merchant sailor that will never fade, and put them all to rout. The passage on Great Sea Waves is worth giving, and I here include it. "The term 'Great Sea Wave' is used in contradistinction to 'Great Earth Wave,' which latter is the name given to the disturbance experienced on land. "An earthquake may have its center of impulse either inland or under the bed of the ocean. In the first case, when the 'Great Earth Wave,' or superficial undulation, coming from inland, reaches the shores of the sea (unless these be precipitous, with deep water) it may lift the water up, and carry it out on its back, as it were; for the rate of transit of the shock is sometimes so great that the heap of water lifted up has not time to flow away toward the sides. "At Arica, in Peru, and other places, this sudden going out of the sea has made bare the bottom of the bay, and left ships aground which only a few minutes before were riding quietly at anchor in several fathoms of water. "As soon as the shock is over, the body of water thus forced out to sea returns as a huge wave, and, on approaching a sloping shore, rears up like a wall, and breaks with overwhelming force. Sometimes, however, its volume, height, and velocity are so great that it comes ashore bodily, and breaks far inland, causing even greater destruction to life and property. At Arica, the _Wateree_--a 'double-ender' belonging to the United States Navy--was carried inland quite a distance by the reflux, and remained as evidence for many years. If the writer's memory is not at fault, she was carried clean over the railway embankment. "When the seat of the disturbance is beneath the ocean, the 'Great Sea Wave' rushes in upon the land as before--with this difference, that it is not preceded by the water retiring from the foreshore, as in the first case.... "About the most notable instance of a 'Great Sea Wave' occurred during the stupendous and ever-memorable eruption in August, 1883, which had for its center the Island of Krakatoa, in the Straits of Sunda. On this occasion the loss of life amounted to 37,000, caused chiefly by the sea waves, one of which attained the almost incredible height of 135 feet. Its effects were traced to all the principal tide gauges of the world, and were even observed at Havre, some 11,000 miles from the source of origin.