"I was observing the motion of a boat which was rapidly drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses, when the boat suddenly stopped- not so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well-defined heap of water, which continued its course along the channel apparently without change of form of diminution of speed. I followed it on horseback, and overtook it still rolling at a rate of some eight to nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to foot and a half in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel. Such, in the month of August 1834, was my fist chance interview with that singular and beautiful phenomenon."
J. Scott-Russell in his Report on Waves at the 1884 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
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