The Restless Tides 

 K. F. Bowden 



Fishing by horse and cart in the Bay of Fundy 

 is made possibie by the great tidai range. 

 When the tide ebbs, poiiacl<, flounder, and 

 bass are ieft hanging on the nets. 



The rise and fall of the sea twice a day is such an obvious thing 

 that it must have been well known to people living along the coasts 

 of tidal seas from very early times. These people also must have 

 noticed that the tides came later and later each day — fifty minutes 

 on the average - as did the rising of the Moon. And possibly there 

 were some who associated this celestial event with the rhythmical 

 rise and fall of the sea. 



Most early written records of the tides were made by people 

 hving on the shores of the Mediterranean, but in nearly all parts of 

 this sea tidal rise and fall is negligible. It was not until Phoenician, 

 Greek, and Roman navigators ventured beyond the Mediterranean 

 — west into the Atlantic and east into the Indian Ocean — that they 

 saw impressively high tides, sometimes to their great surprise and 

 fear. When the army of Alexander the Great approached the mouth 

 of the Indus from the north in 325 B.C., his men were alarmed and 

 confused by the effects of the tides on their moored ships. And 

 when Caesar's legions invaded Britain in 55 B.C., his ships were 

 left high and dry by a twenty-foot spring tide reinforced by a 

 strong wind. 



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