High tide

“ Things being placed aright, out they pull on the heaving sea—the incoming tide having been looked to beforehand, so that at high tide the lighted lanterns may be set afloat and go drifting at their will with the falling flood. ”

“ Once more the running stream is stopped, and slowly the muddy tide rises higher and higher, obliterates the lowlands and creeps slowly up the sides of the high ground, around the skirts of its pygmy mountain-chains, and rolls restored amid groups of remade islets. ”

“ Extraordinarily high tides may be expected when the moon is new or full, and in her position nearest to the earth at the same time as her declination is near the equator, and they will be still further augmented if a strong gale has been blowing for some time in the same direction as the flood tide in the open sea, and then changes when the tide starts to rise, so as to blow straight on to the shore. ”

“ I don't know how the tides are, but if it is high tide now, the top of the opening would be eighteen inches out of water at low tide, for, as you know, the tide only rises about two feet on this coast. In that case a boat would be able to come in and out at low tide, but of course a man wanting to come in or go out could easily dive under at any time. Well, that settles that point for the present. It was a clever plan; any amount of water could flow out in flood time, and yet no one who took the trouble to come behind that ledge of rocks we saw would have any idea that there was an opening. ”

“ You must understand, then, that all tide takes its rise in the free and open ocean under the action of the moon. No ordinary-sized sea like the North Sea, or even the Mediterranean, is big enough for more than a just appreciable tide to be generated in it. The Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Southern Oceans are the great tidal reservoirs, and in them the tides of the earth are generated as low flat humps of gigantic area, though only a few feet high, oscillating up and down in the period of approximately twelve hours. ”

“ The argument on which we are to base our researches is really founded on a very familiar phenomenon. There is no one who has ever visited the sea-side who is not familiar with that rise and fall of the sea which we call the tide. Twice every twenty-four hours the sea advances on the beach to produce high tide; twice every day the sea again retreats to produce low tide. These tides are not merely confined to the coasts; they penetrate for miles up the courses of rivers; they periodically inundate great estuaries. In a maritime country the tides are of the most profound practical importance ”

“ I had calculated the tides to a nicety for my purpose, and found that the time would prove fairly opportune for my purpose, extreme high tide being at about eight o'clock in the evening, which would leave me, after my purpose was accomplished, sufficient light to make my somewhat tortuous way in safety through the maze of islands and shoals, and reach the open sea before utter blackness intervened. ”

“ And, seeing that we are writing more particularly for the young naturalists of our own island, we must devote a little space to the study of the movements of the tidal wave round Great Britain, in order that we may understand the great diversity in the time of high tide on any one day on different parts of the coast, and see how the time of high tide for one part may be calculated from that of any other locality. ”

“ There was one of these rocks which was wholly covered at high tide, and at low tide only the top of it was to be seen. The space between it and the others was too deep for wading, even at low tide. Indeed, there was deep water all around it. ”

“ The tides of the sea—as the two great flowings and ebbings of the water every twenty-four hours are called—are caused principally by the attractive influence of the moon, which, to a small extent, lifts the waters of the ocean towards it, as it passes over them, and thus causes a high wave. This wave, or current, when it swells up on the land, forms high tide. When the moon’s influence has completely passed away, it is low tide. ”

“ If the theory of the tides was to be the simple one so often described, then at every port noon should be the hour of high water on the day of the new moon or of the full moon, because then both tide-exciting bodies are on the meridian at the same time. Even if the friction retarded the great tidal wave uniformly, the high tide on the days of full or change should always occur at fixed hours ”

“ It is the action of the tide in rising and in falling which accomplishes the work. If, therefore, the moon moved so that it was always high tide at the same place, the tides could produce no further effect. The spot where the tide is high on the moon is the spot which is toward the earth. It hence follows that the action of the tides will cease when the moon constantly directs the same face to the earth. ”

“ We see it daily in the case of the Moon; when it is high tide in the open ocean hereabouts, it is high tide also at the opposite end of the Earth. The reason is that the tide-raising body pulls the fluid nearest it more strongly than it pulls the Earth as a whole, and pulls the Earth as a whole more than it pulls the fluid at the opposite extremity. ”

“ Hence a place on the earth has to catch them up, and so each high tide arrives later and later each day—roughly speaking, an hour later for each day tide; not by any means a constant interval, because of superposed disturbances not here mentioned, but on the average about fifty minutes. ”

“ In small vessels it is sometimes sufficient to haul them on shore at high tide, so that when the tide is down they may be left high and dry and repaired, and when the tide is at the highest, hauled off again. ”

“ I’ll go on deck and have another look at the situation. My private opinion is, however, that if they’re coming after us, they’d better come. The tide’s getting higher every minute; and if they get here after we’ve fastened her to the shore, and got her high and dry, they’ll have to wait for twelve good hours before they can get her to float off again,—not to speak of spring tides. Do you know, Bart, if this is spring tide? ”

“ They occur in too many places, and sometimes at too great a depth, to be explained by a mere change in the level of the tides, although as the coasts waste away and alter in shape, the height to which the tides rise and fall is always varying, and the level of high tide at any given point may, in the course of many ages, differ by several feet or even fathoms. ”

“ The highest tide occurs at either the seventh or eighth high water; and the largest tide, varying from 6 feet to 7 feet 1 inch, at the eighth low water after the full and change.
From one hundred and forty observations of high and low water, the mean level of the sea was computed by Captain Crozier, and a corresponding mark cut upon the perpendicular face of the rock on the S.E. side, near the head of the cove, where we always found the best landing, and where the tide-gauge was fixed. ”

“ The range of the tide at times of new moon and full moon 'is greater than the average,' as 'high water then rises higher and low water falls lower than usual.' The tides at such times are called 'spring tides.' When the moon is in its first and third quarters, 'the tide does not rise as high nor fall as low as on the average.' At such times the tides are known as 'neap tides.' 'Tidal Datum Plane,' U.S.C.oast and Geodetic Survey, Special Publication No. ”

“ It is all one to her. For twice a day she recaptures the Mont. She encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.
The tide was rising now.
The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they became one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were driving through, waves as high as our cart wheels.... ”

“ The tremendous forces of nature may often be seen on our coasts in the effects produced by ocean waves breaking on the shore. In the summer of 1877, while at work on the adjacent coast, a very high tide occurred, with an immense surf rolling in from the westward, the result of some storm far out at sea. ”

“ Apart from peculiarities of their own in normal weather, tides are affected by strong winds and a low barometer, and then the tide tables, with their rise and fall to an inch and their time of high water to a minute, become hopelessly inaccurate. ”

“ October 30th.—Full moon 5h 33m p.m., high water at 7h 30m, rise of tide five feet six inches, largest tide the sixth after the change of moon, amounted to six feet two inches, stream of flood 1.0 and of the ebb 1.2 mile per hour. ”

“ It is high-water in the stream, on the days of the new and full moon, between two and three o'clock; and the tide rises, upon a perpendicular, between three and four fathoms. The reason of the tide's being greater here than at other parts of this coast, is easily accounted for. The mouth of the river being situated in a corner of the coast, the flood that comes from the ocean is forced into it by both shores, and by that means swells the tide to a great height. ”

“ The study of the tides is based on accurate observation of their rise and fall on different places round the earth. To show how these observations are to be made, and how they are to be discussed and reduced when they have been made, I may refer to the last edition of the Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry, 1886. For a complete study of the tides at any port a self-registering tide-gauge should be erected, on which not alone the heights and times of high and low water should be depicted, but also the continuous curve which shows at any time the height of the water. ”

“ When there is a considerable difference in the height of high water of two consecutive tides, the ebb which follows the higher tide is lower than that following the lower high water, and as a general rule the higher the tide rises the lower it will fall. The height of spring tides varies throughout the year, being at a maximum when the sun is over the equator at the equinoxes and at a minimum in June at the summer solstice when the sun is furthest away from the equator. ”

“ Considering that many of these islets are not three feet above the water-level,—that ten feet is considered high ground, and fifteen is about the maximum elevation,—you can understand how appalling is the danger caused by any eccentricity of tide. ”

“ If, however, the ball is hanging by a long string we can play at battledore and shuttlecock with it, and it always meets our blows. The latter is the analogue of the tides, for a free wave in our shallow canal Tides Inverted. goes slowly, whilst the moon's tide-generating action goes quickly. Hence when the system is left to settle into steady oscillation it is low-water under and opposite to the moon, whilst the forces are such as to tend to make high-water at those times. ”

“ The kings of the sea."
But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side,
And then come back down,
Singing, "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely forever ”

“ And so we notice that for about six hours from the time when the tide begins to rise, the sea gains upon the land, either stealing on, step by step, over the pebbly beach, and creeping tip the mouths of the rivers, or, when the winds are abroad, rushing over the sand, and dashing against the rocks, as if it would sweep all before it. No power upon earth can stop that steady onward march of wave upon wave, until the unseen boundary is reached. ”

“ Along the dry shore of an ancient sea when the tide was out, rain-drops fell on the sand and dust. Tides often come in with a rush, in wild waves driven by the wind, but when there is no wind and no waves rolling in from far - 245 - distant storms the tide may overspread such delicate things as the imprint of rain-drops with a thin protecting film of mud. ”

“ The tidal movement of the ocean, deep-sea currents, and the agitation of inland waters by the wind, lift up the sands strewn over the bottom by diluvial streams or sent down by mountain torrents, and throw them up on dry land, or deposit them in sheltered bays and nooks of the coast—for the flowing is stronger than the ebbing tide, the affluent than the refluent wave. ”

“ In considering the effect of the natural forces still in operation during the many thousands of years during which they have been at work, it is necessary to bear in mind that the level of the sea has all along remained the same, except so far as it is varied by the rise and fall of the tide, and by the exceptional exaggerations of tidal movement caused by the wind. ”

“ The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls ”

“ I have often been out there in a dead calm at the slack of the tide; and a strange place it is, with the sea swirling and combing up and boiling like the cauldrons of a linn, and now and again a little dancing mutter of sound as though the Roost were talking to itself. But when the tide begins to run again, and above all in heavy weather, there is no man could take a boat within half a mile of it, nor a ship afloat that could either steer or live in such a place. ”