The of death ' ? These tell us neither more nor 

 Tides. } ess ^o many of us more, not less) than the 

 abstruse algebraical formulae of Newton and 

 Laplace. The imagination does not move like 

 flame among intricate calculations, though the 

 mind may be compelled and convinced ; and 

 some of us at least would learn more of the 

 tides and their occult nature and laws from an 

 old islesman telling of lionadh and sruth-mara 

 than from the bewildering maze of the five- 

 and-fifty columns which the Encyclopcedia 

 Britannica devotes to the subject. 



Everywhere this tidal mystery, this beauty 

 of flood and ebb, is to be seen . . . along what- 

 ever coasts sea-waters move or wherever they 

 penetrate. The 'tideless Mediterranean' is 

 but a phrase. Even along the shores of Malta 

 and Sicily there is a perceptible rise and fall, 

 and at a thousand points between Marseilles 

 or Tangier and Venice or Cape Matapan the 

 tidal movement is as mysterious and impressive 

 as among the shoals of Ushant or in the Norsk 

 fjords. There are few places where the 

 trained eye could not perceive a difference of 

 rise or fall. I recollect being shown a spot on 

 the Argive coast of the Peloponnesus where, 

 it was said, the tidal difference was non- 

 existent. On that very day, a day of windless 

 calm, I noticed a fall of over a foot in depth. 



42 



