Abstract
IT is a consequence of Faraday‘s law of electromagnetic induction that when a large body of water moves in the presence of the earth‘s magnetic field, an electromotive force is set up across the direction of motion. Faraday himself said that the tidal streams in the English Channel would generate electric currents across the channel, through the sea, and returning through the land beneath the water. Twenty years later (1851) he was satisfied that fluctuations observed by Charlton Wollaston on the first submarine cable between England and France were due to this effect. Other early observations tended to confirm the connexion of the tides with earth currents in submarine cables and in coastal regions.
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Water Movements and Earth Currents : Electrical and Magnetic Effects*. Nature 161, 192–193 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161192a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161192a0