Author: George E. JenksPublisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780666170491
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Excerpt from The New-Hampshire Register and Political Manual: For the Political Year, June 1871 to June 1872 Now our water-covered globe presents the appearance of an orange, with its major axis in the direction of a line joining the earth and moon. In this position it would remain in equilibrium, with constant high water at two opposite places and low water on a circle at right angles to and equi-distant from these. Although the sun is at a very much greater distance from the earth than is the moon, yet, from its very much greater mass, it exerts a considerable influence in producing the tides of the ocean, and acts on the water in precisely the same manner as does the moon, producing another spheroid of equilibrium, with its major axis in a line joining the earth and sun. The heaping-up of the waters due to the sun is two fifths of that due to the moon; and if the sun and moon, as seen from the earth, were separated by an angle of we should have the axes of our wave spheroids separated by that quantity, and (if the three bodies were at rest with respect to each other) so they would remain to the end of time. But since these conditions do not obtain in nature, and the earth, moon and sun, instead of being at rest with regard to each other, are constantly changing their relative positions and distances (the earth at the same time revolving on her axis), these motions never give the water time to assume the spheroidal shape. Instead of this. An imperfect form of it travels round the globe in a lunar day, which, being about 50 minutes less than the solar day, causes the tides to come later each successive day by about that quan tity. It will be seen from what has been already said that, when the sun, moon and earth are in the same straight line, the solar and lunar waves are coincident - that is. The sun and moon are acting in con cert - and the consequence will be that the tides about this time will rise higher and fall lower than they do when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other. When this latter condition obtains. Their action is antagonistic, and we have a tide that never rises so high nor falls so low as in the former case. That is to say. The highest, or spring, tides happen at the full and new moons. The lowest, or asap, at first and last quarters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
