THE TIDES 179 



required, we may agree to ignore what moderate dis- 

 crepancy there may exist. 



We have seen how Newton, in his effort to make as 

 plausible a showing as possible in the computation of his 

 tidal heights, chose to construe the entire equatorial^ 

 bulge, "85,472 Paris feet" in thickness, as being peren- 

 nially centrifugalized from the polar regions; a mode of 

 figuring in which our modern mathematicians servilely 

 concur, albeit they have reduced this amount to some 

 70,000 feet. Let us take them now at their word and try 

 to ascertain just what is meant by their allegation that 

 this enormous mass is being upheld, not by dams or any 

 other natural bulwarks whatsoever, be it remembered, 

 but by sheer energy filched from the gratuitous, unrecu- 

 perated momentum of the earth's axial rotation. Of 

 course, there is not as much water on, or in, the earth a,s 

 these figures imply, but as our Newtonian friends reason 

 on the basis of this assumption it is fair for us to follow 

 their example. Allowing for the tapering of the thickness- 

 of this aqueous sheet from the line of the equator to the 

 poles, we derive as the total mass of water thus declared to 

 be energially upheld 197,000,000 square miles of area, 

 35,000 feet in depth. Computing the weight of this water 

 on the basis of 63 pounds per cubic foot, reducing to 

 short tons, and translating these into horse-power units 

 under our improvised rule, we obtain the inconceivable 

 quantity of, in round numbers, six quintillions of horse- 

 power! Pray, dear reader, do no t miss the point. New- 

 ton and his adherents do not contend that this feat of up- 

 lifting was performed ages ago, in one great, spasmodic, 

 transient throe, or that natural barriers (mountain 

 ranges, for example) intervened to prevent the fluid 

 from immediately flowing back to the lower levels of the 

 arctics, but that this great sea is continuously being 

 whirled up from moment to moment, from century to 

 century, and from age to age. If, pardonably, you should 

 experience difficulty in crediting our hard-headed men 

 of science with being capable of standing sponsor for such 

 preposterous opinions, let me ask you to ponder this 



