6 THE LAW OF DEPOSIT VI. 



SO that it was necessary to secure it by ropes made fast to stakes driven into the 

 sand. 



Mr. Hiram Bishop, a highly reputable ship-carpenter, at Greenport, formerly a 

 resident on the Atlantic side, informed me that the British sloop-of-war Sylph was 

 lost on the south side of Long Island, near Southampton, in the winter of 1814-15. 

 The materials of this wreck also were taken up to the westward, some of them 

 beyond Fire Island beach, during the three weeks following her destruction. And, 

 curious to relate, her rudder was found, seven years afterwards, twenty miles to the 

 westward of the place of her loss ; it was known by its size, and the king's arrow 

 on the copper. Mr. Bishop also added that the French brig Le Bon Pere de Mar- 

 seilles, went to pieces about the year 1838, on the south side of Long Island, opposite 

 Moriches, Brookhaven ; that most of her cargo came up near where she struck, but 

 that one piece of her top hamper went one mile and a half to the west. 



The above cases are sustained by such rehable testimony, that it seems worth 

 while to preserve them; it is only requisite to add, that the current of the flood tide, 

 on that part of the Long Island ^hore referred to, runs to the westward. 



Proofs of the principle in question, derived from the form and mode of increase 

 of certain deposits were introduced into the Memoir. They were of so decisive a 

 character, that it would be superfluous to multiply them. But there is one state- 

 ment, made on the authority of Lieutenant-commanding J. N. Mafiitt, Hydro- 

 graphical Assistant in the coast survey of the United States, which is too important 

 to be omitted. Cape Hatteras is a point of divergence of the tide wave; or, in other 

 words, a split of the tides takes place there; in consequence of which, the advancing 

 flood that supplies the harbor of Charleston flows along the coast from the north to 

 the south. Lieutenant Mafl&tt says that the water, while it runs flood, is loaded 

 with sand; but that, when it runs ehb, it contains httle or none of this matter. 



Thus the law of deposit of the flood tide has been already distinctly enunciated, 

 and the facts and observations, by means of which it was inductively inferred, have 

 been fully offered. 



The object of the present paper is to search into the mechanical operation of this 

 law, and the uses that it may be thought to have served in the general economy of 

 the globe; to investigate its mode of action, and to assign to it, if admissible, a 

 place among the subordinate fundamental laws that direct the distribution of the 

 loose materials of the earth's crust. 



And first, as to how it acts. The law of deposit of the flood tide exhibits itself 

 in the gradual transportation of the matter held in suspension by the water from 

 place to place, along the hne of its direction, and in the gradual accumulation of 

 this matter at its terminus, which terminus is the limit of progress, or transmission, 

 of the tide in one course, created by the land or by conflicting streams of the tide, 

 from opposite directions. The mode of immediate supply of the material has been 

 treated elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that it exists. If the rise of the tide, 

 and its progress from one point to another distant point upon a line of coast, be 

 followed, it will be observed that the water begins to move forwards first at the 

 lower point A, towards B, ascending in height upon the shore, and that this progress 

 and ascent continue during the state of flood. Now if a floating body, a piece of 



