PLYMOUTH SOUND: ITS TIDAL CURRENTS. 285 
As we would expect, one result of this is a return current from 
Millbay along the coast to Bottlenose Point, some twenty or thirty 
fathoms broad, which barges invariably utilize in going up the 
Hamoaze on an ebb. In Firestone Bay there is an eddy on the 
ebb, but none on the flood. 
What we have just narrated is the ordinary course of events here 
on the first part of an ebb, but a singular phenomenon sometimes 
takes place after a high spring tide which has not hung long on the 
top. The flood current between Drake’s Island and Millbay will 
continue running for an hour to even an hour and a-half after high- 
water, and after the ebb current has been well established at Devil’s 
Point, the Bridge, and the Cattewater. At first sight this seems 
peculiar, but may be explained by the momentum of the great mass 
of water in the deep channel, which requires some considerable 
time before all its energy can be absorbed; it is even assisted by 
the ebb from the Hamoaze flowing over the Bridge, thus deflecting 
it and providing an outlet; at the same time this current is fed on 
its rear by the ebb from the Cattewater, part of which always flows 
along the shore under the Hoe. Necessarily the Bridge soon becomes 
too contracted to pass this united volume, and about an hour and a 
half after low-water the whole readjusts itself to its ordinary con- 
dition, not however without considerable confusion of currents. 
When the ebb stream is first wholly deflected at the Bridge it 
flows into Millbay, as described; but as the ebb continues, the main 
stream gradually works round till, in the main channel off Millbay, 
it has a due easterly direction. Between the southern edge of 
this stream and Drake’s Island an eddy is formed, and extending 
the length of the island. Ships and boats riding at anchor imme- 
diately behind the island may be generally observed during ebb-tide 
to head towards Mount Edgcumbe; in this position they are in 
the return stream of the eddy. The ebb stream from the Catte- 
water sets towards the Breakwater in the main, the inshore or 
northern half of the stream keeps to the rocks under the Citadel 
and Hoe* as far as West Hoe Terrace, opposite the eastern end of 
which it meets the Hamoaze current. These two combine and 
shoot off generally towards the south end of Jennicliff Bay. A 
tide-lining is frequently seen along the course of this stream ex- 
* For some distance under the Hoe the tide, both on the flood and on the 
ebb, flows in the same westerly direction ; the ladies’ bathing-place is situated 
in this distance. 
