the New llieury of the Tides. 47 



must be proportionably increased, it follows of course that there 

 can be no sensible rise {except by expansion) of any of the par- 

 ticles below. To argue, then, that the mass of water may be in 

 agitation, while all the particles of which it is composed must 

 necessarily be at rest, is about as rational as to maintain that a 

 number of cj^^jhers, every one of which is nothing in itself, may 

 amount to a considerable sum ; and yet it is to buoy up this ab- 

 surd h'i'pothesis that my theory is rejected ; while, at the same 

 time, it is tacitly acknowledged to be true by all the philoso- 

 phers, as is evident by their not venturing to oppose it in any 

 way save that of mere assertion. 



That water is compressible to a certain degree, has latterly 

 been proved by facts which cannot be disputed ; and, supposing 

 the degree of compression to be sufficient, the necessary conse- 

 quences of such a principle exactly correspond with the phse- 

 nomena that really take place. Thus, for instance, if we sup- 

 pose the sum of the expansion of all the particles of water at 

 the depth of fifteen miles to amount to thirty feet, there would 

 not be a rise of one mch* at the depth of only a hundred fa- 

 thoms; and, as the waters will only have lost a portion of their 

 gravity, they of course will not remain standing on a heap, but 

 must necessarily roll from those parts, where the rise is great- 

 est, towards the shores of the ocean, where, in consequence of 

 the little depth of water, the rise is imperceptible. This prin- 

 ciple, then, will at once explain, why the tides in many places 

 run in an opposite direction to the moon's motion ; why the 

 flood tide, in every part of the world, always comes from the 

 ocean ; why there are no tides in lakes and shallow water : and, 

 by a parity of reasoning, we have only to suppose that thei-e is 

 not a sufficient depth of ocean, near the coasts, to account for 

 there being no tides in the West Indies and the Mediterranean 

 Sea. The only rational objection, then, that can be brought 

 against my theory is, that it recjuires a much greater depth of 

 ocean, or a greater power of attraction in the moon, than philo- 

 sophers are disposed to allow. But this objection, coming 

 from the Newtonian philosophers, is in the highest degree ab- 

 surd. If they would only give themselves the trouble to thi?ik 



* In fact, it would hardly amount to a single line, because the |)articlcs of 

 water at the depth of la miles would have a weight taken ofl'them which 

 would be equal to the diminution of the weight of all the particles above 

 that depth ; and conse(|uenth', taking the aver:ige, every particle of water 

 in tile ocean where it is I:) miles deep, would have a weight taken oH" it 

 equal to the diminution of the gravity of 7i miles depth of water; while 

 every i)article, where the ocean was only 100 fathoms deep, would only be 

 relieved of a weight that was equal to a diminution of the gravity of no 

 more than ."JO fathoms, 



about 



