f 



V 



i 



for the Advancement of ScieJice. 275 



by ihe Committee of Recommendations, to join Dr. Whewell or any 

 Comniittee which should be named in pressing such an object on the 

 attention of Her Majesty's government. 



Capt. FitzRoy, R.N., said that as Dr. Whewell had done him the 

 honor of alluding to his exertions and opinions on this interesting, and 

 to every sailor important, branch of science, he would beg leave to 

 make a few remarks. In the first place, he must bear his testimony to 

 the accuracy of the statement of the learned gentleman who had brought 

 the subject before them as to the extreme intricacy and puzzling char- 

 acter of the general phenomena, and our deplorable ignorance of ex- 

 tensive fields of research in it. It was known to most of those whom 

 he addressed, that Sir John Herschel in his very delightful work esti- 

 mated the average height of the rise of the tide over the whole surface 

 of the earth to be five feet ; and from all the attention he could bestow 

 on the subject and the best estimate he could form, guided by long con- 

 tmued and very widely extended actual observations of the tides, he 

 believed this to be a very correct opinion. And yet most who heard 

 him were aware how widely in several localities this average was de- 

 parted from. Several localities could be pointed out where the total 

 rise of the tide was to be spoken of as inches ; while in other, and fre- 

 quently not very distant, places, the rise was six, seven, eight, or more 

 fathoms. 



Capt. FitzRoy then stated, that along the entire western coast of 

 South America the tides could scarcely be said to be earlier or later 

 3t one place than at another, — as for hundreds of miles, indeed nearly 

 as far as Panama, they might be said to occur at the same time, 

 though they only rose four or five feet. At the Straits of Magellan 

 they were very remarkable ; on the west side they rose but a few feet, 

 say four or five, but on the eastern side they rose to the enormous 

 height of seven or eight fathoms, and this within a few miles the one 

 place of the other. He considered this to be accounted for thus.— On 

 the western side they partook of the general character of the tides of 

 the Pacific along the coast,— but on the east, the great tide from the 

 Atlantic setting in through the Straits and meeting the tide coming from 

 Jhe west, the waters became heaped up lo the extraordinary height he 

 had stated. He then proceeded to mention several other peculiariiles 

 and anomalies of the tides in the Great Pacific Ocean :— and said that 

 a general review of them had led him to throw out the conjecture 

 alluded to by Dr. Whewell, that in this great basin the tides seemed to 

 be at one time urged forward by the luminary as it passed along over 

 "»em tosvards the west, and then afterwards seemed to surge back again 

 towards the east; and in this motion lo an fro the waters of this great 

 basm might be conceived as a whole to partake; while yet the motion 

 of no one part need move more than a very few feet from Its place, 



5- Ohservaiions on Atomic Volumes and Atomic Weights, with consid- 

 erations on the prohability that certain bodies noxo coiisidered as 

 elementary may he decomposed; by Prof. Dumas. 



. Prof. Dumas alluded to the solubility of some substances and the 

 insolubility of others, giving many instances of the difference of this 

 *?uality in regard to solution in water, sulphuric and strong acids, and 



