A Treatise On The Principles And Practice Of Harbour Engineering

BREAKWATER DESIGN. 127 On the evening of 26th February 1898, after several days of rainy weather and rough sea, both wind and waves became suddenly intensified. The gale augmented in violence as night advanced, reaching ite maximum shortly after midnight. The wave crests, mounting higher and higher, finally leapt over the parapet of the Galliera mole and fell upon the inner quay. The light at the pierhead was visible until 3 a.m., when it suddenly went out. Although, as M. Bernardini admits, it was easy to confuse the spray with the wave itself, and the grandeur of the scene was a temptation Fig. 105.—Harbour of Genoa. towards exaggeration, it can certainly be said that the columns of water thrown up by the force of the waves, as they broke against the mole, attained a height of 65 feet during the early hours of the morning of 27th November. This is without taking into account a few small columns here and there, which rose to much greater heights—at least 100 feet. The height of the waves themselves is estimated from careful observation to have been about 25 feet. It is curious to note that, contrary to what might have been expected, the atmospheric pressure did not fall in proportion to the unusual violence of the