6 
Royal Society. 147 
mental philosophy ; in which department hehas already introduced, 
or is in the course of introducing, a series of more appropriate au- 
thors than those previously in use.”—Review of Whewell’s Thoughts 
on the Study of Mathematics as a part of a Liberal Education, p.410. 
We rejoice that such a man has stept forward to dissipate our an- 
xieties, and to disabuse the public ; and do not hesitate to rely on the 
assurance of so competent a judge, and one who has had opportuni- 
ties of carefully examining the subject, that © Newton’s philosophical 
and moral character come out from this examination blameless and 
admirable, as they have always been esteemed by thinking men.” 
XXX. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
[Continued from vol. vii. p 412.) 
Nov 19, “ OX the Empirical Laws of the Tides in the Port of Liver- 
1835.— pool.” By the Rev. William Whewell, M.A., F.R.S. 
The author employs the results of the discussion of sixteen years of 
tide observations made at Liverpool, published by Mr. Lubbock in the 
Philosophical Transactions for the present year, in testing and im- 
proving the formule, expressing the mathematical laws of the inequa- 
lities of the phenomena of the tides, which had already been deduced 
by the author from the London tide observations. He finds that the 
Liverpool observations have not only confirmed, in the most satisfac- 
tory manner, these formule, but have furnished the means of greatly 
improving them. The corrections for lunar parallax and declination, 
which, as far as they depended on the former investigation, might be, 
considered as in some measure doubtful, and only locally applicable, 
have now been fully verified as to their general form ; the nature of 
the local differences in the constants of the formulz has also, in part, 
come into view ; and the investigation has, moreover, shown that, 
notwithstanding the great irregularities to which the tides are subject, 
the results of the means of large masses of good observations agree 
with the formule with a precision not far beluw that of other astrono- 
mical phenomena. ‘The formule obtained point directly to a very 
simple theory of the circumstances of tides, namely, that the tide at 
any place occurs in the same way as if the ocean assumed the form 
of equilibrium, corresponding to a certain antecedent time, and differ- 
ent place. The ocean, in its position of equilibrium, would have the 
form of a spheroid, of which the pole would revolve round the earth, 
following the mvon at a certain distance of terrestrial longitude. This 
distance is termed by the author the retroposition of the theoretical 
tide in longitude, its mean value being what he has termed in other 
communications, the corrected establishment of the place. If from an 
original equilibrium tide, a derivative tide were sent off, along any chan- 
nel, in which it is no Jonger infiuenced by the forces of the moon and 
sun, it would take a certain time in reaching any place in that chan- 
nel, and the circumstances of the tide at that place would not depend 
on the positions and distances of the moon and sun at the time when 
the tide happens, but on the positions and distances of those lumina- 
ries at a certain time, anterior to the time of the tide, by the interval 
occupied in the transmission of the tide along the channel. This inter- 
R 2 
