144 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



deep this hill of water following the moon moves at 

 the rate of over five hundred miles an hour, and they 

 vainly ask how it is they have never been met and 

 overwhelmed by this terrific rush of water. But as 

 the wave approaches the shore it is greatly retarded, 

 it "smells the bottom," as we [say, and its speed 

 dwindles to fifty and then to fifteen miles an hour, 

 until it enters the various ports and rivers at quite a 

 gentle, nay, almost an imperceptible, rate. Of course 

 this gentle approach varies according to the contour 

 of the land. Where that is fairly level and its bays 

 are open, its rivers regular and easy of access, the tide 

 behaves in genial fashion, and the ebb and flow goes 

 on almost imperceptibly. But in some parts of the 

 world, where obstruction after obstruction is offered to 

 the incoming tide, it rages and foams its way into the 

 indentations of the land, and its coming and going 

 are marked by much the same sound and fury as 

 characterize a mountain torrent, only, of course, upon 

 a vastly grander scale. Of such places one of the 

 chief is the Bay of Fundy, in British North America. 

 The entrance of this gulf is exceedingly narrow, being 

 almost blocked by the Grand Manan Islands, yet tho 

 opening seaward is very wide. Into this great bay 

 the tidal wave rolls majestically until it meets with 

 the obstructing islands, and then it rages and tears its 

 way between them and the promontory of Nova Scotia 

 at an enormously accelerated rate. Having poured 

 through the narrow channel between the Grand Manan 

 and Bryer Islands, it rushes on until it finds another 

 inlet inviting it, the Basin of Minas. Into this it 

 turns at a rapid pace, as if remembering how much it 

 has to do in the short time allotted to it, when 



