CUEEENTS OF THE MEDITEEEANEAN. 125 



However, an attentive examination of the movement of the waves 

 has equally revealed to observers the existence of the tidal wave in 

 the partial basins of the northern shores of the Mediterranean. 

 Beyond Malaga, where the tides of the Atlantic are still propagated, 

 the level of the sea hardly changes : but on the coasts of Italy the 

 oscillations begin to be perceptible again. At Leghorn, the tide 

 rises less than 12 inches ; at Venice, the difference between the high 

 and low waters varies from 1 to 3 feet.* At the mouths of the Po 

 the tide does not attain the same height. On the coasts of Zante, 

 in the Ionian Sea, it is less than 6 inches ; finally, at Corfu, it does 

 not exceed an inch.f In the Oriental basin of the Mediterranean, 

 the tide is likewise very slight ; nevertheless, the alternate oscillation 

 of the sea is not ignored by the people living on the shores. Omar 

 spoke doubtless of the tide when he said, ' The sea stands very high, 

 and day and night it entreats the permission of God to inundate 

 the land.-* 



JSTot only has the Mediterranean its ebb and flow like the ocean, 

 but it has also its currents and eddies, and among these phe- 

 nomena, there are some which, without being as formidable as the 

 Moskoestrom or Blanchard Eace, are not less celebrated, because 

 of the glory with which classical antiquity has invested them. Thus, 

 the Euripus, or Strait of Egripos, which separates the Island of 

 I^Tegropont from continental Greece, is said to be traversed by extra- 

 ordinary currents, which produce with regularity their surprising 

 phenomena. Up to the eighth day of the lunar month, the ebb and 

 flow, whose mean amplitude is less than a foot, follow one another in 

 a normal manner, only with one hour's delay ; but from the ninth to 

 the thirteenth day the movement of oscillation is suddenly hast- 

 ened, and during the 24 hours no less than 12, 13, or 14 tides 

 may be counted, each one having its flow, its period of stability, and 

 its ebb. From the fourteenth to the twentieth day, a normal state 

 of things prevails ; then from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth, 

 every day will again be marked by a series of a dozen high and 

 low tides. Such is the result of the experiences of the millers, who 

 see the wheels of their mills turn alternately one way and the other, 

 according to the direction of the current.^ On their side, the Mus- 

 sulmans maintain, as an article of faith, that the five waves of the 



* G, CoUegno, Geologia delV Italia, p. 280. 



f Von HofF, Ver under ung en der Erdoberjldch. e, t. iii. p. 256. 



X Berghaus yon Kloden, Eandbiich der Erdhmde. 



