Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/541

Rh of Alaska and off the coast of Luzon—the tide occurs at nearly one and the same time, while the amount of rise and fall is considerable. Also, that for a considerable area around each of these angles, the time of tide changes slowly in going from place to place. The range of tide gradually decreases from the Gulf of Alaska, where it is about eight feet, to the western groups of the Aleutian Islands—the range off Rat Islands being less than two feet.

The South Pacific system embraces an L-shaped region extending from the coast of California and Lower California to the shoals and islands north of New Zealand, thence southeasterly to southern Chile and Graham Land.

Three no-tide points occur in mid-ocean, one occurs in Norton Sound, Alaska, one near either end of the Sea of Japan, and one in the Gulf of Pechili.

Referring now to the cotidal maps of the world, it appears that the mean range of tide at Panama is 12.6 feet, while at Colon, just across the isthmus, it is only 0.6 foot. That a great difference between the tides at these two points exists was mentioned by Oviedo y Valdez as long ago as 1526, and the question as to the reasons therefor has been frequently raised even up to the present time. Upon consulting the small chart of the world, it will be seen that Panama is situated at one angle of the triangular area where the rise and fall would naturally be greatest.

On the other hand, the tides which enter the Caribbean Sea from the ocean must be small because of the proximity of the nodal line setting out from the Lesser Antilles (Fig. 4). The time and range of the small tide at Colon indicate that it belongs to the equilibrium tides of the Caribbean Sea itself.

Likewise the small tides in the southwestern portion of the Gulf of Mexico are equilibrium tides belonging to the gulf.

The tides in the eastern portion of the Mediterranean are equilibrium tides of that body.

The tides in the Red Sea consist partly of a bodily oscillation of that sea and partly of a progressive wave from the Indian Ocean.

The tides found along the South American coast, from Cape Horn to Rio de la Plata, are derived from the tides of the Pacific Ocean, as is apparent from the chart of cotidal lines for the Atlantic Ocean. The range of tide is about thirty feet at the eastern end of Magellan Strait and less than two feet at Buenos Aires.

It has already been noted that a dependent stationary wave occupies the Bay of Bengal. Such waves are found in the following arms of the