78 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



SURVEY OF TIDES AND CURRENTS IN CANADIAN 



WATERS. 



By Wm. p. Anderson, Esq., C. E., Chief Engineer, 

 Department of Marine and Fisheries. 



Good progress has bsen made by the technical branch of the 

 Department of Marine and Fisheries in the survey of the tides 

 and currents of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Altantic coasts of 

 the Dominion. 



Self registering tide gauges, giving continuous records day 

 and night throughout the year, are now in operation at Quebec, 

 Father Point, Anticosti, tlie Strait of Belle Isle, St. Paul Island, 

 Halifax, and St. John, N. B. 



Tide tables for Halifax and Quebec, based for the first time 

 upon direct observations of the tides, have been published this 

 year, which are infinitely more accurate than anything heretofore 

 available. These tables have h^e<^ inserted in the leading 

 Canadian and nautical almanacs, and are thus far more widely 

 circulated than they could be through any official medium. 



The currents in the Strait of Belle Isle, off the Gaspe coast 

 and in Cabot Strait, at the entrance to ths Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 have, during the past two seasons, been examined by Mr. W. 

 Bell Dawson, Engineer in charge of the survey. 



It is found that the current in the Strait of Belle Isle is not 

 a constant inward current, as has been frequently claimed, but is 

 fundamentally tidal in its nature. Off the Gaspe coast and in 

 Cabot Strait there is a permanently outward set which, however, 

 nowhere extends below forty fathoms in depth. An interesting 

 development of the investigation of this current is the relation 

 between the density of the water and the track of the current. 

 It is found, as might reasonably be expected from the volume 

 of discharge of the St. Lawrence, that the water off the Gaspe 



