370 



Tides in the Mediterranean and Adjacent Seas 



Fig. 154. (b) Lines connecting the same average spring tide range in the North Sea. 



retardation and of the ratio of the neap range to the spring range for which 

 Merz has published the map shown in Fig. 155. It can be seen that both 

 distributions are determined by geographical factors. The spring retardation 

 increases in the corner of the Deutsche Bucht up to nearly 3 days, whereas 

 in the Kattegat there is an extraordinarily rapid change from a lag of about 

 30 h to a priming of about 40 h. The ratio of the neap tide and the spring 

 tide ranges, which should be theoretically 36 %, increases regularly from north 

 to southeast up to 89% in Hamburg. It is not possible to establish the real 



