The limit to which it may be practicable to multiply ratchets or
toothed bands will, of course, depend upon the thickness of the
spur-wheel, and when this latter has been greatly enlarged, with the
object of providing for this feature, it becomes virtually a steel
drum having bevelled steps accurately cut longitudinally upon its
periphery.

The masts of a ship tend to assume a position at right angles to the
water-line. When the waves catch the vessel on the beam the greatest
degree of pendulous swing is brought about in a series of waves so
timed, and of such a length, that the duration of the swing coincides
with the period required for one wave to succeed another. The
increasing slope of the ship's decks, due to the inertia of this
continuous rhythmical motion, often amounts to far more than the angle
made by the declivity of the wave as compared with the sea level; and
it is, of course, a source of serious danger in the eyes of the
mariner.

But, for the purposes of the mechanician who desires to secure power
from the waves, the problem is not how to avoid a pendulous motion but
how to increase it. For each locality in which any large wave-power
plant of machinery is to be installed, it will therefore be advisable
to study the characteristic length of the wave, which, as observation
has proved, is shorter in confined seas than in those fully open to
the ocean. It is advisable then to make the beam width of the buoy,
no matter how it may be turned, of such a length that when one side is
well in the trough of a wave the other must be not far from the crest.

Practically the best design for such a floating power-generator will
be one in which four buoys are placed, each of them at the end of one
arm of a cross which has been braced up very firmly. From the angle of
intersection projects a vertical mast, also firmly held by stays or
guys. The whole must be anchored to the bottom of the sea by
attachment to a large cemented block or other heavy weight having a
ring let into it, from which is attached a chain of a few links
connecting with an upright beam. It is the continuation of the latter
above sea-level which forms the mast. On this beam the framework of
the buoy must be free to move up and down.

At first sight it might seem as if this arrangement rendered nugatory
the attempt to take advantage of the rise and fall of the buoy; but it
is not so when the relations of the four buoys to one another are
considere