Cliap. 100.] ANOMALOUS TIDES. 127 



On which account neither lakes nor rivers are moved in the 

 same manner. Pytheas^ of Massilia informs us, that in 

 Britain the tide rises 80 cubits^. Inland seas are enclosed 

 as in a harbour, but, in some parts of them, there is a more 

 free spa^e which obeys the influence^. Among many other 

 examples, the force of the tide will carry us in three days 

 from Italy to Utica, when the sea is tranquil and there is no 

 impulse from the sails*. But these motions are more felt 

 about the shores than in the deep parts of the seas, as in the 

 body the extremities of the veins feel the pulse, which is the 

 vital spirit, more than the other parts^. And in most estu- 

 aries, on account of the unequal rising of the stars in each 

 tract, the tides differ from each other, but this respects the 

 period, not the nature of them ; as is the case in the Syrtes. 



CHAP, 100. — WHERE THE TIDES RISE AND FALL IN AN 

 UNUSUAL MANNER. 



There are, However, some tides which are of a peculiar 

 nature, as in the Tauromenian Euripus^, where the ebb and 

 flow is more frequent than in other places, and in Euboea, 

 where it takes place seven times during the day and the 

 night. The tides intermit three times during each month, 

 being the 7tli, 8th and 9th day of the moon^. At Gades, 

 which is very near the temple of Hercules, there is a spring 



* Our author has already referred to Pytheas, in the 77th chapter of 



this book. 



2 It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the space here mentioned, 

 wliich is nearly 120 feet, is far great<?r than the actual fact. 



3 "Ditioni paret;" "Luna) solisque efficientise, quae ciet sestum." 

 Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 430. 



"• The effect here described could not have depended upon the tides, 

 bat upon some current, either affecting the whole of the Mediterranean, 

 or certain parts of it. See the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire. 



* Pliny naturally adopted the erroneous opinions respecting' the state 

 of the blood-vessels, and the cause of the pulse, which were universally 

 maintained by the ancients. 



^ The name of Euripus is generally applied to the strait between 

 Boeotia and Euboea, but our author here extends it to that between Italy 

 and Sicily. A peculiarity in the tide of this strait is referred to by 

 Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 24. 



^ " ^stus idem triduo in mense consistit." " Consistentia, sive medio- 

 critas aquarum non solum septima die sentitur, sed et octava, ac nona 

 durat," as Hardomn explains this passage, Lemaire, i. 431. 



