CHAPTER I. ON THE FLOW AND EBB OF THE SEA.

in some ports of England and Holland, the sea only rises by six to seven feet; which clearly shows how much the particular configuration of the coasts forming each haven or port must cause a difference in the height of the tides, as one can judge by examining the table we shall provide of the establishment of ports The "establishment of a port" is a 18th-century hydrographic term referring to the specific time of high water at a location on the days of the new and full moon. along the western and northern coasts of Europe.

As it was quite natural to think that the further a sea was from the equator, the less the flow original: "flux"; the rising tide. should be perceptible, several authors have claimed that there was no longer any tide past the sixtieth degree of latitude. This is likely because they had no knowledge of the observations made by many famous navigators who have approached closest to the Arctic Pole—among others, John Davis, who in 1587 went beyond the seventy-second degree, where he found that the flow was much stronger than on the coasts of Africa. On this point, no doubt remains since Henry Ellis, an English gentleman, reported in the account of his voyage to Hudson Bay, made in 1746 and 1747, that on the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the sixty-fifth degree of latitude, the sea rose by several fathoms original: "braffes"; a unit of depth equal to about six feet.. He himself remarked that in Hudson Bay, on the coast of the Welcome Referring to the "Welcome Sound" or "Roes Welcome Sound" in the Nunavut territory of Canada., at a latitude of 64 to 65 degrees, the tides rose as high as 16 feet during new and full moons; from which he draws the judicious conclusion that there is necessarily a Northwest Passage from this bay to the South Sea: a passage so sought after for several centuries by the English, in order to shorten the route to the East Indies.

596. It is also observed that the arrival of tides is delayed more—with regard to the establishment of the ports of the English Channel original: "la Manche"—the further they are from the open sea original: "mer du large", or from the mouth of the strait, which is quite natural. Thus, every time the entrance of a port is narrowed by jetties or by some other work, the hour of the tides is delayed, and the establishment of that port is then no longer the same as before; besides this, the tides there are less strong, although the speed of the water upon entering becomes greater; but this excess of speed does not compensate for the decrease caused by the narrowing of its opening. Indeed, if the sea enters faster, it is only because it is lower in the port than outside, from which it follows that it must take more time to exit than it took to enter; which is consistent with experience, especially if this