T30 The Australasian Scientific Magazine. [Nov. i, i 885. 
theory suggested is therefore a complete one, inasmuch as it is applicable 
to all the phenomena of both winds and currents, and without adducing 
anything further in its favour it is now only necessary to enquire whether 
it is also applicable to the phenomena of the tides. 
The explanation given of the tides in our scientific works is certainly 
unphilosophical. That they depend principally upon the attraction of the 
moon is true, but that the attraction of that luminary operates upon the 
waters and the solid part of our earth, as our text books inform us, cannot be 
admitted. The contention that those parts of the waters of our globe 
which are directly under the moon’s vertical path in the heavens, and 
hence nearest to that body, are in consequence of the stronger attraction 
drawn out towards her, and that in this way she causes the waters to flow 
from other parts to supply their place, has already been disproved. The 
assertion that the waters on the opposite side from the moon bulge out 
beyond the general line of the earth’s circumference, because they are less 
strongly attracted than the intervening solid earth which is said to be 
drawn away from them, is such a palpable absurdity as not seriously to 
require consideration. A more scientific method of explaining the tides 
is found in the fact already referred to, that the moon’s attraction makes 
itself felt, not on those parts of the earth directly under her, but on those 
90 deg. distant in every direction from her central attractive influence. So 
that from all sides— north, south, east, and west— the waters rush towards 
this central point, where they are piled up one upon another, and thus 
cause high water under the moon, or rather, as will be presently explained, 
some degrees to the eastward of the meridian over which the moon is 
vertical. " The rotatory motion of the waters to the west of the meridian so 
far as 90 deg. distant therefrom will be greatly increased, whilst that to the 
east will be retarded. This causes them to accumulate under the 
moon, whilst at 90 deg. distant on both sides from the centre of 
the tidal wave there is low water, with a strong current running 
from west to east. The tidal wave once formed, it will be found con- 
stantly increasing on its western side by waters rushing up from a direction 
due west between the tropics, from the north-west in the northern, and 
from the south-west in the southern hemisphere ; whilst an equal volume 
of water must of necessity break away from its eastern side running due 
east between the tropics, north east in the northern hemisphere— see 
direction of the tidal wave at the British Islands when the moon has 
passed the meridian— and south-east in the southern hemisphere. As the 
waters accumulate from the west by an increase in their rotatory motion, 
this tidal velocity will not be overcome till they have passed beneath and 
to some distance eastward from under the moon, when the counteracting 
influence offered by their running up hill will be assisted by the retarding 
influence of the moon’s attraction after they have passed the meridian. 
They are thus brought for a few minutes to a standstill when they have 
reached their highest point. We therefore have high water at any place 
not at the moment when the moon is vertical but some hours after she 
has passed the meridian of that place. 
Keeping all these facts in view we can have no difficulty in understand- 
ing why there should be high water on the opposite side of the earth from 
the moon. Did the earth" not rotate we should have high water only on 
one side — that next the moon — and a uniform level would subsist all round 
on the side most remote from that body. But as the earth does rotate, we 
find the waters continually drawn away from its western side, and by the 
