‘1819.] Meteorological Journal kept at Penzance. 207 
an interval which would bring the moon and sun into that situa- 
tion, which would, if there were no impediments, produce low 
water in the same place. Hence it will be low water out at sea 
about the time when the tide has arrived at the highest on the 
coast, and consequently it must then be made to sink by running 
back towards those parts from which it originally flowed in. It” 
will be seen likewise from this interval of time that the low water 
out beyond the New Hebrides must have taken place before the 
tide had come to its height in the Endeavour river. Nowa 
greater depression of the waters must have followed the higher 
tide, or that which followed midnight, than the lower, or that 
which took place after noon; and this depression must have 
taken place out at sea before the time of the greatest accumula- 
tion on the coast; hence it would have the greater tendency to 
diminish, as it were, the sources of that accumulation, and con- 
sequently the tide near the land would not have risen so high in 
the morning as in the evening. For exactly the same reason, 
the intervening low tide will suffer the greater depression ; and 
Captain Cook says that the low water preceding the highest, fell 
ce considerably lower than that which preceded the morn- 
ing tide. 
Ss fer much thought on the subject, the above explanation 
appears to me to be highly probable; and at all events, the 
discussion will not be without its use. Practical men are often 
hasty in generalising ; and seamen, from the facts which Captain 
Cook has stated, might be induced to think that what he 
observed three different times in one place would always occur at 
least in that part of the world. This I am confident is not the 
case. I cannot but think that a different aspect of the moon 
and sun might have reversed the phenomena; but even if these 
remarks should not be as satisfactory to others as they appear 
to me, I need not blush to have failed in assigning causes to 
what even Cook himself was confessedly unable to account for. 
Oct. 1, 1818, . 8. 
ArTIcLE IX. 
Meteorological gree the Year 1818; from a Journal kept in 
Penzance, at the Apartments of the Royal Geological Society 
of Cornwall. Communicated to Dr. Thomson by Dr. Forbes, 
ecretary to the Society. 
DEAR SIR, Penzance, Jan. 22, 1819. 
As we are accustomed in this place to congratulate ourselves 
on enjoying a milder climate than is possessed by any other 
town in the kingdom, you will, perhaps, consider an authentic 
record of the temperature at Penzance, during last year, as 
9 
