Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/498

482 to Section A of the British Association at York, went into this question in its commercial aspect. At present, however, we may say that the power of the tides is as much wasted as is the power of Niagara. Perhaps, when coal becomes more scarce and when the means of distributing power by electricity are more developed, the tides and the great water-falls will be utilized; but that day will not be reached while coal is only a few shillings a ton.

Though we have not yet put the tides into harness, yet tides are not idle. Work they will do, whether useful or not. In some places the tidal currents are scouring out river-channels; in others they are moving sand-banks. From a scientific point of view the work done by the tides is of unspeakable importance. To realize the importance, let us ask the question, Whence is this energy derived with which the tides do their work? The answer seems a very obvious one. If the tides are caused by the moon, the energy they possess must also be derived from the moon. This looks plain enough, but unfortunately it is not true. Would it be true to assert that the finger of the rifleman which pulls the trigger supplies the energy with which the rifle-bullet is animated? Of course it would not. The energy is derived from the explosion of the gunpowder, and the pulling of the trigger is merely the means by which that energy is liberated. In a somewhat similar manner the tidal wave produced by the moon is the means whereby a part of the energy stored in the earth is compelled to expend itself in work. I do not say this is an obvious result. Indeed, it depends upon a refined dynamical theorem, which it would be impossible to enter into here.

But what do we mean by taking energy from the earth? Let me illustrate this by a comparison between the earth rotating on its axis and the fly-wheel of an engine. The fly-wheel is a sort of reservoir, into which the engine pours its power at each stroke of the piston. The various machines in the mill merely draw off the power from the store accumulated in the fly-wheel. The earth is like a gigantic flywheel detached from the engine, though still connected with the machines in the mill. In that mighty fly-wheel a stupendous quantity of energy is stored up, and a stupendous quantity of energy would be given out before that fly-wheel would come to rest. The earth's rotation is the reservoir whence the tides draw the energy they require for doing work. Hence it is that, though the tides are caused by the moon, yet whenever they require energy they draw on the supply ready to hand in the rotation of the earth.

The earth differs from the fly-wheel of the engine in a very important point. As the energy is withdrawn from the fly-wheel by the machines in the mill, so it is restored thereto by the power of the steam-engine, and the fly runs uniformly. But the earth is merely the fly-wheel without the engine. When the work done by the tides withdraws energy from the earth, that energy is never restored. It