299 
of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
harbour was 4 feet more than expected, and was 3 feet 2 inches 
above high water of spring tides (Rennie’s datum). This is 10 
inches higher than any tide previously recorded. The tide on the 
6th was also unusually high, being 3 feet 2 inches more than cal- 
culated. 
At Sunderland the tide was 3 feet 11 inches more than the cal* 
culated height. 
At Hull it was high water at 5.45 on the morning of the 8th, 
and the tide rose to a height of 30 feet 5 inches above the Humber 
Dock cill, or no less than 5 feet 5 inches more than was calculated. 
The tide of the previous day had risen only to 23 feet 4^- inches 
above the cill ; so that we have at Hull the extraordinary difference 
of 7 feet \ inch between two successive tides — the greatest amount 
of aberration I have hitherto discovered in the east coast tides. 
The average height of springs at Hull is 26 feet 8 inches on the 
dock cill, there being very seldom tides of 28 feet. A list of the 
high tides at this port has been sent to me, and I find that since 
1788 there have been only twenty-three tides which have reached 
a height corresponding to 29 feet on the Humber Dock cill — an 
average of only one tide in three and a half years. Of these 
twenty-three tides only one reached the height of 30 feet, and that 
was on the 18th February 1816, during a gale from the N.W. 
The tide was then 4 inches lower than that of the 8th ult., which 
is the highest tide on record at Hull. 
The tidal wave appears to have reached its maximum about 
Hull, having travelled from Aberdeen in 4h. 29m. — according 
to Imray’s tide-tables — exactly one hour faster than usual, as 
might be expected from so strong a flood. This is at the rate of 
nearly eighty miles per hour— -a great speed for a wave of the first 
order in 50 fathoms water, and equal to what it usually is in 70 
fathoms. 
About this point, or perhaps nearer Yarmouth, the tide began to 
feel the counteracting influence of the low water of the wave which 
sweeps along the south and west of England. 
By the time high water reached Lowestoft the level had appa- 
rently fallen a little ; for though the tide was 20 feet 9 inches, or 
4 feet 3 inches above the average, still this is 2 feet 3 inches less 
than the tide of the 2d December 1867, which is the highest 
