Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/58

Rh more than a mile broad, the length running from East to West, as the Frith lyes. At the East end of this Island, where I stayed some 16. or 17. dayes, I observed a very strange Reciprocation of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, and heard of another, no less remarkable.

Upon the West side of the Long Island, the Tides, which came from the South-west, run along the Coast, Northward; so that during the ordinary course of the Tides, the Flood runs East in the Frith, where Berneray lyes, and the Ebb West. And thus the Sea ebbs and flows orderly, some 4. days before the full Moon, and change, and as long after (the ordinary Spring-tides rising some 14. or 15. foot upright, and all the rest proportionably, as in other places. But afterwards, some 4. days before the Quarter moons, and as long after, there is constantly a great and singular variation. For then, (as Southerly Moon making there the full Sea) the course of the Tide being Eastward, when it begins to flow, which is about 9 of the Clock, not onely connuescontinues [sic] so till about 3 in the afternoon, that it be high water, but, after it begins to ebb, the Current runs on still Eastward, during the whole Ebbs so that it runs Eastward 12 hours together, that is, all day long, from about 9 in the morning, til about 9 at night. But then, when the night-Tide begins to flow, the Current turns, and runs Westward all night, during both Floud & Ebb, for some 12 hours more, as it did Eastward the day before. And thus the Reciprocations continue, one Floud and Ebb, running 12. hours Eastward, and another twelve hours Westward, till 4. days before the New and Full Moon; and then they resume their ordinary regular course as before, running East, during the six hours of Floud, and West, during the six of Ebb. And this I observed curiously, during my abode upon the place, which was in the Moneth of August, as I remember.

But the Gentleman, to whom the Island belongs at present, and divers of his Brothers and Friends, knowing and discreet persons, and expert in all such parts of Sea-matters, as other Islanders commonly are, though I shrewdly suspected their skill in Tides, when I had not yet seen what they told me, and I have now related of these irregular Courses of the Tides, did most confidently assure me, and so did every body I spake with Rh