Surf-bathing

Perhaps the most ordinary danger of the seashore - if danger can be called ordinary - is what are known as the three waves. The breakers, as a rule, says Harper's Weekly, como in a series of three. Sometf.mes the three are small, and sometimcs very heavy, but, as a rule, the sequences run about the saine size. Imagine a bather inside the surf-line, with the surf breaking over a bar about fifty or one hundred feet from shore. Those big1 green waves that rise higher and higher as they come tovvard liim do not seem very formidable. The first one rears its head before it reaches him with an angry swish; iv curl of foam, like a feather cdge, crops outalong the top. and lilis the air with spray. Then the wave takes a more decided süoreward curl, the line of foain bicornes deeper, there is a crash as it drops to a level, and the bather finds himself thrown down in a cabrón of seething suri, Say he is in three feet of water on the level. Aiter the wave has passed, he struggies to his feet choking, gasping, and halfblind with the salt-water. Ile doesn't really know what has happened, but he has a dim idea that something has hit him. Before he has time to eollect his senses the second of the series is upon him, and he goes down again. He is dazed and confuse,d, and he flovmders around hopelessly. The third wave is always the 'finishing stroke, and gives the life saver, if there is one, a chance to do some work. Guided by an outstretched arm thrust above the water involuntarily, or by a bobbing head with which the surf is playing football, he drags the unsophisticated one out on the sand. That is the most lomnton danger of the surf.