PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 



1834-1835. No. 20. 



April 2, 1835. 



JOHN WILLIAM LUBBOCK, Esq., M.A., V.P. and Treasurer, in 



the Chair. 



James Burnes, M.D. ; Joseph Delafield, Esq. j G.W. Feather- 

 stonhaugh, Esq. 5 James Alexander Gordon, M.D.; Colonel Sir 

 Robert John Harvey; Thomas Leybourn, Esq.; George Moore, Esq. j 

 Arthur Morgan, Esq.; Charles Henry Oakes, Esq., B.A, ; John 

 Henry Pelly, Esq. ; Richard Taunton, M.D. ; William Tite, Esq. ; 

 Samuel Warren, Esq.; James Wigram, Esq., M.A. ; and Charles 

 J. B. Williams, M.D. 3 were elected Fellows of the Society. 



A paper was read, entitled, " On the Results of Tide Observations, 

 made in June 1834, at the Coast-Guard Stations in Great Britain 

 and Ireland." By the Rev. W. Whewell, F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. 



On a representation made by the author of the advantages which 

 would result from a series of simultaneous observations of the tides, 

 continued for a fortnight, along a great extent of coast, orders were 

 given for carrying this measure into effect at all the stations of the 

 Preventive service on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 

 from the 7th to the 22nd of June inclusive. From an examination of 

 the registers of these observations, which were transmitted to the Ad- 

 miralty, but part of which only have as yet been reduced, the author 

 has been enabled to deduce many important inferences. He finds, 

 in the first place, that the tides in question are not affected by any 

 general irregularity, having its origin in a distant source, but only by 

 such causes as are merely local, and that therefore the tides admit of 

 exact determination, with the aid of local meteorological corrections. 

 The curves expressing the times of high water, with relation to those 

 of the moon's transit, present a very satisfactory agreement with 

 theory j the ordinates having, for a space corresponding to a fort- 

 night, a minimum and maximum magnitude, though not symmetrical 

 in their curvatures on the two sides of these extreme magnitudes. 

 The amount of flexure is not the same at different places j thus con- 

 firming the result already obtained by the comparison of previous ob- 

 servations, and especially those made at Brest ; and demonstrating 

 the futility of all attempts to deduce the mass of the moon from the 

 phenomena of the tides, or to correct the tables of the tides by means 

 of the mass of the moon. By the introduction of a local, in addition 

 to the general, semimenstrual inequality, we may succeed in recon- 



