386 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



small number of observations used to obtain them. The constants 

 may therefore with tolerable accuracy be derived from them. The 

 mean lunitudal interval is 12h. 05m., and corresponds to hours of 

 the moon's age. The tide therefore belongs to the next preceding 

 transit of the moon, and not to the fifth preceding, as found by Mr. 

 Lubbock for the coast of Great Britain. 



The inequalities in intervals of high water, and in the height of low 

 water, were shown to increase together ; and so for the inequalities in 

 height of high water, and in interval of low water, the first have the 

 same sign as the moon's declination. The inequality in the height of 

 low water is in general greater than that of high water, exceeding it 

 when at the maximum in the ratio of two to one, nearly. The same 

 ratio nearly exists between the greatest inequality in interval of high 

 water, compared with that of low. The form of daily curves and the 

 peculiarities of the daily inequalities may all be explained with numer- . 

 ical precision by the interference of a diurnal wave, following the semi- 

 diurnal at a distance of seven hours and a half, in the part of the lu- 

 nation when that difference is nearly constant. This was illustrated 

 by diagrams. The diurnal inequality in height was shown to follow 

 approximately the law of the sine of twice the moon's declination. 

 When the moon's declination is north, the highest of the two high 

 waters of the day is the one which occurs about twelve hours after 

 upper culmination. 



DISCOVERIES AT NINEVEH. 



"Within the last year, a most important addition to our knowledge of 

 Assyrian history has been made by Colonel Rawlinson, who has deci- 

 phered the annals of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, from the marbles 

 of Nineveh. In one short passage of these annals, is contained a syn- 

 chronism of the greatest value in determining the date of that reign. 

 By means of this passage, coupled with what Herodotus says of Sen- 

 nacherib and Sethos, we are enabled to connect together definite 

 points of Assyrian, Judsean, Tyrian, and Egyptian history, in one par- 

 ticular year, the date of which we shall be able to establish with per- 

 fect clearness. The passage referred to, synchronizes the third year 

 of Sennacherib in Nineveh, the fourteenth of Hezekiah in Jerusalem, 

 the last of Ilulseus in Sidon. 



. 



THE JACQUARD LOOM. 



Two nieces of Jacquard, the well-known inventor of the loom which 

 bears his name, have been compelled, by poverty, to offer for sale the 

 Gold Medal bestowed by Louis the Eighteenth on their uncle. The 

 sum asked was simply the intrinsic value of the gold, 20/. The Cham- 

 ber of Commerce, of Lyons, becoming acquainted with the circum- 

 stance, agreed to become the purchasers of it for 2-lL "Such," says 

 the French Journal, the Cosmos, "is the gratitude of the manufactur- 

 ing interest of Lyons, for a man to whom it owes so large a portion of 

 ts splendor." 



