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The Museum Gazette 



will often be seen that the flower pedicles have also remained. 

 On looking further and comparing them with others it will 

 always be noticed that these stems are thinner and less 

 vigorous than their companions. It is the sickly plants which 

 can neither cut off their tops nor detach their flowers at the 

 footstalk, the strong ones which can and do these things. 



THE TIDES. 



It were well worth the trouble of a visit to the seaside 

 were there no other object than that of observing the wonderful 

 phenomena of the Tides. We all know that these are brought 

 about through the influence of the Moon and Sun, but not 

 improbably many of us have to get rid of certain misconcep- 

 tions before we can understand the reality. The water which 

 comes creeping or dashing up round the child's sand castle 

 is not drawn there by the moon's attraction acting simply as 

 a magnet might act on a toy swan. It does not leave, for 

 instance, one side of the North Sea or of the Atlantic in order 

 to swell up on the other and then return. Quite otherwise, 

 the movements of the surface of the water are the result of 

 a deep ground swell which has travelled from far and in 

 which the almost measureless depths of the oceans were 

 involved. You can no more have tides in small masses of 

 water than you can have tempests in teacups. The moon 

 declines to exert her power on small achievements. To trans- 

 late this into the language of science the force of attraction, 

 although always present, becomes manifest only when very 

 large bodies are concerned. It is then where the ocean is 

 of almost measureless extent and some miles in depth that 

 the attraction of the moon causes movement and that the 

 force is originated which results in the tides. The earth 

 rotates on its axis under the sun and moon and the attraction 



