On the Tides. 83 
McKenzie found a tide of about fifteen feet, when he reached 
the ocean, on his travels to the N. W. coast of America, near Behr- 
ings’ strait. It is said there is a great tide at Calcutta; yet, if 
we may believe the navigators, it is small at the Gaulwich Is- 
lands, rising only one or two feet, the highest flood always at 
meridian, and being thus totally disobedient to the rising and 
setting of the moon in that immense expanse of ocean, where 
her influence ought to be greatest. 
L here quote from the American Quarterly Review, No. xxxix, 
for September, 1836, p. 10. Art. I. Report made to the Senate of 
the United States, on the subject of an exploring expedition to 
the Pacific ocean and the South seas, by Mr. Southard, chairman 
of the committee, March 21st, 1836. “ We shall detain the reader 
but a moment longer on this branch of our subject, to mention a 
in; fact in relation to the tides in the Pacific ocean, and we 
do this, in order to draw the attention both of practical navigators 
and philosophical observers.” 
_ “It is stated by the intelligent Mr. Ellis, the missionary who 
resided several years in Tahiti (Otaheite) and the Sandwich Is- 
lands, that the rising and falling of the tides, (in the South sea 
islands, ) if influenced at all by the moon, appears to be only so in 
a very small degree. The height, says he, to which the tide 
rises, varies but a few inches during the whole year; and at no 
time is it elevated more than a foot or a foot and a half. The 
sea, however, often rises to an unusual height; but this appears 
to be the effect of a strong wind blowing for some time from one 
quarter, or the heavy swells of the sea, which flow from different 
directions and prevail equally during the time of high and low 
water. During the year, whatever be the age or situation of the 
moon, the water is lowest at six in the morning and the same 
hour in the evening, and highest at noon and midnight. This is 
so well established, that the time of night is marked by the ebb- 
-ing and flowing of the tide; and in all the islands the time of 
hints wuterend fos widnight is the same. The same thing is 
stated by Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet, in their journal of voy- 
but irregular inundations of the sea, that the tides throughout the 
Pacific ocean do not appear to obey the infiuence of the moon in 
the slightest degree. It is always high water about twelve, and 
