HAMILTON — ON TIDES OF THE BAY OF FUNDY. 37 



consist of broad expanses of marine alluvium and low cliffs of 

 carboniferous sandstones and shales ; those of Minas basin, of 

 marine alluvium and low cliffs of new red sandstone. 



The tides of the Bay of Fundy have attained an almost world 

 wide celebrity. This is no matter for surprise, for some of the 

 phenomena pertaining to them are of a very striking and im- 

 pressive character, and yet no more striking than singular. 

 Without pausing to discuss the theory of the tides generally, I 

 will proceed at once to describe some of the more noteworthy of 

 these phenomena. 



The great volume of water which sets into the Bay with the 

 flood, comes from the south. The tidal current on entering the 

 mouth of the Bay, is much accelerated, owing to the gradual 

 narrowing of the bed which confines it, and rushes over the 

 basalt ledges of Brier island, and through the Grand passage 

 and Petite passage, with great velocity. Were this tide an 

 ordinary ocean current, produced — say by a trade wind, on 

 entering the Bay of Fundy from the direction from which it 

 does come, it would strike almost directly across the Bay, and 

 would spend its greatest force on the IS'ew Brunswick shore 

 between Point LePreau and the mouth of the St. John. Being 

 broken on that shore, the main portion of the current, now much 

 weakened, would set to the eastward, but close along the north 

 shore of the Bay, whilst a slender stream from it would be 

 directed to the westward and eddy about Passamaquoddy bay. 

 We find the very reverse to be the case in fact. The tide, being 

 in its original and simplest manifestation, a vertical uprising of 

 the surface of the ocean, has a tendency to seek in every direc- 

 tion its original level. Consequently, when the flood begins to 

 *' make " off Brier island, in the mouth of the Bay, the current 

 sets alike in every direction, northwardly and eastwardly. But 

 this being the case, by the time it has reached the New Bruns- 

 wick shore, it will already have extended up along the south 

 shore, far above the point directly opposite to which it first 

 became perceptible on the north side of the Bay. Thus the tide, 

 both flood and ebb, on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy is 

 always in advance of that along the north shore. It is high 

 water at the entrance to Digby gut twenty-one minutes before it 



