TIDELESS SEAS. 127 



masses, and thq field of battle moves incessantly from Messina to 

 Scylla. On the confines of tlie currents, wliere the mingling of the 

 waters is efiected with violence, narrow eddies are formed, where 

 the waves are more agitated than elsewhere ; these are the ' eyelets,' 

 or garofali. Ships avoid them, for fear of being too violently shaken ; 

 but they run no danger unless the wind blows strongly in a contrary 

 direction to the tide. The strait is a curious spectacle, seen from the 

 height of the mountains of Messina or Reggio, with the undulations 

 and eddies that the conflicting waters describe ; every instant sheets 

 of water of a darker tint than those of the surface are seen to change 

 their form, indicating the ebb and flow. 



In the other enclosed seas of Europe the tides are likewise little felt. 

 They are less than 16 inches on an average in the Zuyderzee, and 

 during the days of the equinox or of tempests they hardly attain 3 

 feet 6 inches. The Baltic, which is much narrower and more strewn 

 with islands than the Mediterranean, is subject in consequence to 

 much slighter oscillations ; it was even called in former times 

 7norimarusa {mor y marh)^ that is to say, in Celtic language, " Dead 

 Sea."* The sailors pay no attention to the variations of the surface 

 produced by the ebb and flow : for them the winds, the currents, and 

 the meteorology of the atmosphere are the only phenomena which 

 they have to observe. In fact, on the western coast of Jutland, the 

 tide is on an average less than 12 inches, at the entrance to the Catte- 

 gat it loses still more in force and regularity, and in the straits of 

 the Sound and the two Belts it is difiicult to recognize. In the 

 harbour of Copenhagen an oscillation of about 1 or 2 inches can still 

 be sometimes distinguished, but only when the weather is perfectly 

 calm and the surface of the water hardly rippled. At Wismar the 

 phenomena of the tide are still more uncertain, and it is only by a 

 series of observations on the surface of the waters pursued during 

 several years, that the probable existence of a total variation of little 

 more than 3 inches between high and low water can be ascertained. 

 Near Stralsund the diflerence is only \\ inch, and near Memel it 

 hardly exceeds an inch. The much more considerable variations 

 which occur in the level of the sea arise from the winds, the cur- 

 rents, or the pressure of the atmosphere. Rapid oscillations of 

 nearly 3 feet have been sometimes seen to occur ; but these are 

 the seiches, similar to those of the lake of Genoa. f The force of the 

 winds alone is sometimes sufficient to lower by little more than 3 feet 



* Von Maack, Geitschrift fur die Erdhunde, 1860. 

 t See in Vol. I. the chapter entitled, Lakes. 



