42 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



cosmic bodies frankly declared to be falling through the 

 void, I put myself in the position of challenging Newton's 

 tidal theory. But let it not be forgotten that in doing 

 this I am marching in good company ; for do not Young, 

 Kelvin and Darwin all staunch Newtonians proclaim 

 that "the statical theory becomes utterly unsatis- 

 factory in regard to what actually takes place", that 

 "both theories must be abandoned as satisfactory ex- 

 planations of the true conditions of affairs/' that "the 

 problem is one of insoluble mystery", and that "it would 

 seem then as if the tidal action of the moon was actually 

 to repel the water instead of attracting it"? 



Paradoxical as it may sound to those wedded to the 

 old idea, I contend that the sun and not the moon is the 

 vera causa of the tides. There is positively but one 

 single circumstance that connects the moon with our 

 tides, a circumstance which, when rationally considered, 

 far from constituting a proof of the moon's claims, is 

 instead a flat contradiction. This single circumstance 

 consists in the fact that at any given port high tide occurs 

 fifty-one minutes (on the average) later each succeeding 

 day and the moon crosses the meridian from day to day 

 in accordance with this same interval. On comparing 

 the state of the tide, however, with the position of the 

 moon it is found that when the latter is overhead there 

 is actually low tide, while when she is some thirty degrees 

 below the western horizon of the port, that port has flood 

 tide. "It would seem then", to quote Darwin's words 

 again, "as if the tidal action of the moon was actually to 

 repel the water instead of attracting it; and we are 

 driven to ask whether this result can possibly be consis- 

 tent with the theory of universal gravitation ' '. 



From time immemorial it has been a tradition that 

 the moon is somehow the cause of the tides ; for this co- 

 incidence in the matter of the interval did not escape the 

 sages of prehistoric races. With the natural zeal of the 

 pioneer, Newton sought to explain this connection with 

 his new solvent of universal gravitation. At the outset 

 he had but these two facts to go by, (1) the coincidence 



