96 FEOM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



here over the Pacific; but, in the meantime, she has 

 dragged it thence overnight around the curve of the globe. 

 Eight hours hence, when the moon, now in her zenith, has 

 descended 30 degrees below our western horizon and is 

 soaring over India", he goes on, " the crest of the tide will 

 arrive here in the midst of the Pacific, and we shall speak 

 of it as this day's tide." Ask him at what meridian 

 yesterday's tide dies out and to-day's begins; whether 

 the tide of the Atlantic dissipates itself by contact with 

 the eastern shores of the American continent, or is 

 dragged around Cape Horn into the eastern Pacific; 

 whether, if it be thus dissipated, the Pacific tide is not 

 also dissipated upon the eastern shores of Asia, India and 

 Africa and never enters the Atlantic at all and he will 

 answer you somewhat as Darwin does, "It is interesting 

 to reflect that our tides to-day depend even more on what 

 occurred yesterday or the day before in the Southern 

 Pacific and Indian oceans than on the direct action of the 

 moon to-day the problem is one of insoluble mystery.'' 



Again, according to Newton, the terrestrial waters 

 located on the moonward side flow toward that body, 

 while the waters on the nether side tend toward the lunar 

 antapex. Now, the crests of all the tides at all times are 

 invariably located below the moon's horizon, consequently 

 they belong to the nether hemisphere and, by premiss, 

 should seek the antapex. But observation shows other- 

 wise, for the main tide keeps coursing up the earth 's side 

 incessantly, seemingly determined to rise into the moonlit 

 hemisphere, a feat, however, which it never achieves. 

 In short, whether we regard the tide as part of the moon- 

 lit hemisphere or as part of the other, its behavior is 

 equally contradictory of the Newtonian hypothesis. 



Only a little insight is required to reveal that Newton 

 pictures the moon as doing and undoing its alleged work 

 at one and the same time a house divided against itself. 

 Could you look down from the moon you would see no 

 sign of the tide, for the crest of it is perennially hidden 

 from her sight and even some thirty degrees around the 

 bend of her horizon. Now let me ask you to translate 

 yourself in spirit to that point in the moon's orbit 



