On her journey across the Atlantic, the Canard steamship Umbria'
encountered a wave of the most extraordinary dimen- sions. So high was the wave, that the officer on the bridge, forty feet above the sea-line, was unable to see over it ; and when it struck the vessel, it extinguished the white light on the foremast, sixty feet above the level of the water. An eye-witness describes the wave as looking "like a black mass of water with white waves on the top." It seemed to those on the vessel to tower above her as a solid pier towers above " a small boat alongside." When the wave struck the ' Umbria,' she shivered from stem to stern, and "the combing of the wave" fell with the weight of tons of water on the decks, making havoc of all around, splintering the wood into fragments, and twisting the iron stanchions. There seems no way of accounting for this gigantic wave, unless some earthquake has taken place unobserved. The `Umbria' fortunately escaped without loss of life or serious damage. A weaker vessel would probably have been swamped. The incident may perhaps explain the loss of ships under circumstances which have hitherto seemed to defy all possible explanations.
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