THE NORTH SEA AND ENGLISH CHANNEL. 
717 
dence of the danger of approaching this part of the Channel if ignorant of the set of 
the stream ; and most singularly this unsuspected evil occurs exactly in the spot 
where those disastrous wrecks of the Conqueror and Reliance took place, and where 
the Curaqoa, one of Her Majesty’s frigates, so narrowly escaped a similar fate. 
Henceforward a simple reference to a Dover tide table will enable the mariner to 
determine in which direction his vessel is being carried, assured that whilst the water 
is rising at Dover he will have a fair stream from the Lemon and Ower to the North 
Foreland in one channel, and from Alderney to Beachy Head in the other, and vice 
versa ; whilst the times and places of the meeting of the streams will be apparent 
upon the Plan, so that it is hoped, when the contents of the present paper are suffi- 
ciently known and circulated, they will be the means of diminishing the number of 
those losses of both life and property with which the annals of Lloyd’s abound, 
and of advancing our knowledge of the tides by the practical illustration of the 
phenomena of the tidal streams of straits under the influence of a combined wave. 
In closing this report, I particularly wish to observe that my thanks are due to the 
officers whose names have been mentioned as having contributed to this inquiry, and 
especially to the Trinity House and Captain Bax, to whose exertions in training the 
light-vessel keepers the observations made by them owe their value ; and to Captains 
Washington and Bullock and the officers, who have been engaged in both making 
the observations and drawing the plans. 
To you. Sir, I am indebted for the unremitted assistance you have rendered this 
cause by the exercise of a zeal which is ever forward in promoting whatever tends to 
the improvement of navigation or to the advancement of science. 
I am. Sir, your humble Servant, 
F. W. Beechey, Captain R.N. 
To Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, K.C.B., 
^C. 8fC. ^c.. 
Admiralty. • 
Note . — Since this report was forwarded, observations have been made between the Spurn and Helgoland, 
and it appears that in all that part of the sea lying between the rotatory streams off the Texel and Helgoland, 
or rather between 2°‘30 E. and 7°‘30 E., the stream turns nearly simultaneously with the time of high water 
at Helgoland and at Dover, the establishments of those places being nearly the same. We may therefore 
look for a combined wave at the mouth of the Elbe, and for a succession of rotatory streams extending to a 
considerable distance in a north-easterly direction from Lynn. A few observations have been made in the 
English Channel also which confirm our former results, and show that such of the observations of the French 
surveyors referred to in p. 708 as have been tested, were in excess, as had been anticipated. — F. W. B. 
4 z 
MDCCCLI. 
