168 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



moon and tide in the single particular that each has the 

 same habit of arriving at any given port 51 minutes later 

 each succeeding day, pedal most softly on the dissonance 

 between the meridianal places where these phenomena 

 respectively appear at the same instant of time. Ac- 

 cording to Newton's main hypothesis, the tidal crest 

 should exist at all times nowhere but exactly beneath the 

 moon. Were this, indeed, the case, the causal relation- 

 ship between moon and tide would be all but conclusively 

 demonstrated. But the uncompromising fact is that the 

 tide which the moon is alleged to raise up under her, 

 never by any chance appears anywhere near there, but in- 

 variably hides below her horizon some eight hours in her 

 wake! 



Having, let us say, been freshly taught by our New- 

 tonian savants as to how the moon causes the tides, and, 

 furthermore, that gravitation acts instantly over very 

 great distances, our first impulse is to glance at the near- 

 est expanse of ocean to note the evidential phenomena. 

 But instead of beholding the expected hillock, we really 

 see a hollow ! Dumf ounded, we conjure up apologies for 

 the solecism, as, that the water here is too shallow, or 

 the expanse too restricted, and the like. Accordingly, we 

 decide to test out the hypothesis under the most favorable 

 conditions possible, and for this purpose select the 

 central meridian of the Pacific, on the equator, where the 

 ocean is at its deepest, when the full moon is in the zenith, 

 and where there can be no suggestion of continental resis- 

 tances to hinder the tidal process. But even here, here, 

 under ideal conditions, we behold, not a rise, but a more 

 pronounced depression than ever! and we recall Dar- 

 win's plaint once more, "It would seem, then, 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 consistent with the theory of 

 universal gravitation^! 



Now the tide must come into being somewhere and 

 somewhen, and it must exist before it can be " dragged ". 

 If it be not lifted into being under the ideal conditions 



