THE TIDES OF THE BAY OF FUNDY—MURPHY. 55 
tide sets from Cape Sable to the north-westward, through the Seal, 
Mud, Tusket and Bald Islands, at the rate of two or three miles 
per hour, and in the channels among the islands it increases to 
four or five miles, thence taking the direction of the main- 
land it flows past Cape St. Mary, and then N. N. W. to Briar 
Island.” 
The times of high water at full and new moon are at Seal 
Island 9 h.; Tusket Island, 9.33; Yarmouth Sound, 10.9; Cape 
St. Mary’s, 10.80; and at Briar Island, 10.438. 
It takes, then, 1 hour, 43 minutes, for the crest of the flood 
tide to advance between co-tidal parallels drawn through Seal and 
Briar Islands, representing a distance of 64 miles, whilst the same 
tidal wave advances across George’s shoal, about the centre of the 
entrance to the Gulf of Maine, and reaches the shore of the 
State of Maine, a distance of 150 miles in the same time. The 
flood passes in freely and swiftly at the centre, crowded and 
tortuous at the sides. 
Capes Cod and Sable are the portals of the flood-gate. 
Around the Nantucket shoals of the former the tide has a whirl- 
ing motion, and around or between the latter and Briar Island 
there is the contest between the water pent up or backed by the 
shore and the water moving swiftly into the gulf in volume, 
which takes place at every change of tide, or before either force 
has gained or lost ascendancy; and here in this gulf we have the 
principal fountains of the abnormal tides of the Bay of Fundy. 
About the centre of the opening to the gulf no unusual tidal 
oscillation is apparent until we cross an imaginary line drawn 
from Cape Cod to Cape Sable. No sooner have we advanced over 
the George’s bank, and proceeded about forty or fifty miles 
northerly, than a remarkably sudden rise of tide presents itself, 
about four feet in fifty miles. Following the shores of Massa- 
chusetts, New Hamsphire, and Maine, to Mount Desert, and 
crossing the bay from thence to Yarmouth, thus completing a 
circuit around the crescent, which the shore line resembles, we 
find the time of high water in the Gulf of Maine at full moon 
and change to be at 
