In the present study,the surface elevation of wind waves observed in laboratory and in the Bohai Sea are adopted for the estimation of the wind wave frequency spectrum by use of the method of the arcsine law (MAL).The traditional method uses the surface elevation to calculate the correlation and then estimate the frequency spectrum while the MAL,presented by Yu and Lan (1979),uses the time sequence of zero-crossing points of surface elevation rather than directly the surface elevation to calculate the correlation.66 sets of wind wave data obtained in laboratory and 420 sets of data observed in the Bohai Sea are adopted for the examination of the method introduced by Yu and Lan.Results show that the MAL can give reliable estimation of wind wave spectra.Correlation and form of spectra estimated by the MAL are similar to those estimated by the traditional method.The peak frequency and the spectral density in peak frequency by the MAL are close to those obtained by the traditional method.