5^8 
Memoranda of Flood and Storm 
[October, 
the number yearly sacrificed to typhoid. In spite of popular 
lectures on chemistry few persons are fully aware of the 
effeCl that free oxygenation has on the human frame. And 
if any true idea of the necessity of pure air to health could 
be insensed into the millions of our people, prodigious indeed 
would be the reduction of the annual bills of mortality. 
IV. MEMORANDA OF FLOOD AND STORM 
IN THE YEAR 1883. 
By A. H. Swinton. 
f jHE outcry and grumble concerning our damp soggy 
winter and harvest prospers had hardly subsided 
when some interested parties at the sea-side got up 
an excitement by the prediction of a high tide. Many 
doubtless imagined men of Science had made some new 
discovery, and took tickets to Ramsgate or Jersey, places 
they would not otherwise have visited, in order to verify the 
important revelation. It is doubtful, however, if a greater 
amount of learning than any harbour-master has at his 
finger’s ends was ever expended on the matter. Ages have 
passed since Seneca noticed that the flux and reflux in the 
tideless Mediterranean is greatest at the equinoctial ; and 
only a year or two ago we were assured that at the time of 
the Equinox, and in stormy winter seasons, there is a much 
greater rise and fall in the water of our own Humber than 
would otherwise occur. It is consequently, then, not essen- 
tial to puzzle over a malevolent conjunction of the Moon 
and Saturn in order to predict a high tide ; nor is it essential 
to have deep insight into lunar and solar semi-diurnals and 
diurnals, and the excentricity of the orbits causing inequali- 
ties as the discord of harmonic notes. Indeed nothing 
now-a-days further than Whitaker’s Almanack is essential 
to make a man a prophet of the long-shore tides. In that 
useful compendium we glean that the direction of strong 
winds, as well as the varying pressure of the atmosphere, 
considerably affeCts both the times and the heights of high 
