NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 37 
neighboring places. There is, however, one fact about the 
vertical range of the tides, which may help in the explanation 
of the twelve-hour phenomenon, viz., while the ordinary 
spring tides range vertically about six feet, the neap tides 
range only about two feet. 
Mr. Smith adds that the tides of Buctouche are very 
much affected by the winds, though presumably the phenom- 
ena in this respect are not essentially different from those in 
other shallow bays of the coast. Thus, a high wind from 
the north or northeast will not only drive the spring tides 
to a height of ten feet, but if persistent will keep the tide 
from falling appreciably at all. Since no other wind has this 
effect, and since Buctouche Bay does not open northward but 
southward, it seems plain that the effect must be due to 
the piling up of the waters of Northumberland Strait and not 
of the Buctouche alone. 
Evidently in these phenomena we have a most attractive 
subject for exact investigation. Some alert young resident 
of Buctouche, constructing for himself a simple self-recording 
tide gauge, has here the opportunity to lay the foundation 
for a scientific education and a reputation in scientific research. 
Needless to say I have looked with interest to see what 
mention is made of these anomalous tides in the “Tide Tables 
for the Eastern Coast of Canada,” and in other writings 
of Dr. W. Bell Dawson, the Superintendent of the Tidal 
Survey of Canada. But I have found only the following, 
which I copy from the Tables for 1914. It is under the 
heading, “Current in Strait,” on page 58: 
The tide throughout the region is characterized by a marked diurnal in- 
equality. This feature of the tide is under the influence of the declination of 
the moon; and it is most pronounced when the moon is in high declination, 
north or south of the equator. The period in which this variation recurs is 
the tropical or declination — month, which is over-run by the synodic 
month of the moon’s phases. Hence when the variation is greatest, it occurs 
sometimes at the spring, tides and sometimes at the neaps. The turn of the 
current in the strait has thus an appearance of great irregularity, which 
is usually attributed to the w r ind, whereas in reality it is almost wholly 
astronomical. 
