297 
of Edinburg] l, Session 1867 - 68 . 
keeping up the tides round the coast of Britain ; and if the wind 
then goes suddenly round to the north of west, it brings in the 
tidal wave from the Atlantic in great strength round the north 
of Scotland, and consequently raises the level of high water on 
the east coast to an abnormal height, more especially as the wave 
works its way southward to the shallow water and obliquely shelv- 
ing shores of England. 
The effect of these long-continued westerly winds on the tides 
culminated, on the morning of the 8th of February, in a tidal wave 
of perhaps unprecedented height on the east coast — the same wave 
which brought high water to the west of England and Ireland on 
the afternoon and evening of the 7th. 
I shall endeavour to trace the height of this wave from the 
time it passed the Pentland Firth till it met, off Lowestoft, the 
counteracting low water of the wave which travels rounds the south 
of England. 
Nothing remarkable in the height of the tide was noticed at 
Wick, where the tides seem to be more locally affected by gales 
from the S.W. to S.E., which raise the level of high water some 12 
or 15 inches. 
As the wave swept along the coast of Banffshire it increased in 
height, till at Aberdeen the level of high water was 3 feet 6 inches 
above the calculated height. High water took place here at 1.16 
a.m , and was 24 feet 4 inches on the dock cill. The average of 
spring tides for five years at Aberdeen is 22 feet on the cill, but 
the tide of the 8th was not expected to rise so high as this, and it 
is the highest recorded since 1862, before which the records appear 
uncertain. 
At Leith the tidal wave rose at 1.58 a.m. to the height of 26 feet 
10 inches on the Victoria Dock cill. The calculated height, 
according to Reid’s tables, which are those used at the port, should 
have been 22 feet 6 inches, so that the actual height was 4 feet 
4 inches more than the calculated height ; the greatest discrepancy 
1 have ever heard of at Leith. Between the previous high water 
on the afternoon of the 7th and that on the morning of the 8th, 
there was no less a difference than 5 feet 8 inches. The extraordi- 
nary amount of this difference will be better understood if we bear 
in mind that it represents the ordinary total rise between high 
