MANUAL OF TIDE OBSERVATIONS 49 



147. Operating difficulties. — It would be impossible to anticipate 

 all difficulties which might arise in the operation of the automatic tide 

 gage but the principal ones are listed below. The tide observer should 

 become familiar with different parts of his gage by reading the de- 

 scription of the instrument contained in this manual. All the gages 

 in use are not of the same identical pattern but the observer will note 

 any differences which may exist in the gage at his station. 



148. Broken or tangled float wire. — Observer visits station and 

 finds float wire off drum, tangled, and perhaps broken. Although 

 this may result from several causes, the most frequent one is a dirty 

 pencil screw which has jammed the gage and prevented the counter- 

 poise from taking up the slack in the float wire as the tide rose. The 

 wiring should be entirely removed from the gage and the pencil screw 

 examined and cleaned in accordance with paragraph 130. New wir- 

 ing may then be installed as described in paragraphs 91-94. It will 

 liot be necessary to attempt to adjust the gage exactly as before, but 

 a note should be entered on the roll itself and also in the weekly re- 

 port stating that new wiring was installed, and a comparative staff 

 reading must be taken and recorded. 



149. Other causes which might lead to a broken or tangled float 

 wire are improper instjfllation of wiring, an obstruction in the path 

 of the counterpoise weight, jamming of a pulley through which one of 

 the wires passes, and an interference between the recording pencil and 

 the datum pencil. If the instructions for attaching counterpoise 

 and float are not strictly followed, it is possible that an excess of 

 wire attached to the float may run off the edge of the float drum at 

 the time of a specially high tide, thus causing a sudden jerk which 

 could break or tangle the wire. An obstruction in the path of the 

 counterpoise weight or the jamming of a pulley through which the 

 wire passes might prevent the weight from functioning and thus per- 

 mit the slackening of the float wire. A similar effect may be pro- 

 duced if the recording pencil fails to clear the datum pencil in pass- 

 ing because of an improper adjustment of the pencils. See paragraph 

 118. 



150. Clock failure. — If either clock stops frequently or runs per- 

 sistently fast or slow regardless of all efforts to regulace it by the 

 customary method, a requisition should be made for a new clock unit, 

 and an effort should be made to keep the old clocks functioning while 

 waiting for the new* unit. The stopping of either clock may be caused 

 by winding too tight or by a collection of dirt in the works. The 

 latter condition may be temporarily remedied by the use of kerosene. 

 In some of the older types of gages, clock failure may result from a 

 flexure of the frame caused by drawing too tight the screws securing 

 the clock to its case. Any jamming of the supply roll of paper might 

 affect the running of the motor clock, and any unusual resistance in 

 the operation of the hour-marking device would have its effect on the 

 time clock. 



151. Failure of hour-marking devices. — Assuming that this is not 

 the result of the stopping of the time clock, any failure will probably 

 be found to be due to an improper adjustment of the device. Instruc- 

 tions given in paragraphs 127-128 should be carefully followed. 



152. Torn paper. — If the paper is found torn along the record 

 curve during a rising tide, it is probably the result of a dirty pencil 



