i88 3 J 
in the Year 1883. 
589 
water. As every sun-burnt yachtsman who has luffed and 
gyved for the purse of guineas knows, in the North Sea a 
strong nor’-nor’-wester, and a low barometer, raises the sur- 
face 2 or 3 feet, and causes the tide to set all along the 
coast from the Pentland Frith to London half an hour longer 
than is usual ; while south-easterly and south-westerly winds 
produce opposite effects, which are felt as far down Channel 
as Dungeness. Again, in the Chops of the Channel, at 
Plymouth, and as far up as Portland, a sou’-wester with a 
low barometer raises the surface of the water, and north- 
easterly winds and a high barometer always lower it. 
Now last March it so came about that the new moon fell 
on the afternoon of the 7th ; and this auspicious event, on 
the same authority, would produce high tides between the 
9th and r4th of the month. That these equinoctial tides 
would be extraordinary anyone might have assumed when a 
storm-warning arrived from New York, to the effeCt that “ A 
disturbance likely to develop dangerous energy is crossing 
north of latitude 40°, and will arrive on the North British 
and Norwegian coasts between the 3rd and 5th proximo, 
attended by south veering to west gales ” ; with the supple- 
mentary remark, “ Another follows two days after, and will 
affeCt Norway. Atlantic very stormy.” At the time the 
barometer was already on the drop, and from the 5th until 
the 1 2th the mercury subsided ; and then the aerial whirl- 
pool was spinning eastward of the North Sea, and northerly 
winds blew strong on the eastern coasts of our island, 
accompanied with driving snow, rain, and sleet. Beneath 
the suCtion of moon, wind, and atmospheric vacuum, the 
tide began to mount like water in a pump. From the 
Pentland Frith to the Thames it rose, rolling in like a 
Noachian deluge. At the time of high water at London 
Bridge the tide had risen more than z\ feet beyond the 
Trinity stone ; and it ran up, spectators say, with great force 
for another twenty minutes, when it stood 3 feet above 
Trinity level and swamped the Surrey pier. At Dover the 
water surged to within a few inches of the top of the quays, 
and only the chopping of the wind to the north-west saved 
the town an inundation. The tide in the River Tees was 
one of the highest within recollection, and at Hull the salt 
spray drenched a fashionable congregation in St. Mary’s 
Church and floated a low-lying district. The prodigies of 
the remarkable tide were supplemented in the newspapers 
by an account of a tidal wave in the Channel, one calm 
night, that might shame the bore of the Hooghly or Severn ; 
but I am afraid the adventure that befell the Aquila steam- 
