Abstract
OUR readers may have heard that England is a “seagirt isle,” and that we are a maritime nation, possessing a very powerful navy and an extensive commerce. They also know that the ocean to which we owe these peculiarities is a very restless fluid, its surface being ruffled by the wind, and its entire mass uplifted and depressed from time to time, in what we call tides, by the attractive power of the sun and moon. They know, too, that the theory of the tides has been investigated by the most profound mathematicians, particularly by Laplace, Lubbock, Airy, and Whewell. And they are, no doubt, aware that the theoretical laws deduced by these learned men, though indispensable as a foundation of our knowledge, are entirely insufficient, by themselves, for the wants of man, the conformation of the coast-line and of the sea bottom powerfully modifying tidal facts. Hence it becomes necessary to resort to observations and surveys in order to know what will be the course of the tides as to heights and times in particular localities frequented by ships, such as roadsteads, harbours, and the mouths of rivers. All this, perhaps, every one of our readers knows; but it may not, perhaps, be so generally known that the study of the tides throws light on various high cosmical, gravitational, and physico-geographical problems.
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The Tides and the Treasury . Nature 6, 157–158 (1872). https://doi.org/10.1038/006157a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/006157a0