A View of Sir Isaac Newton's PhilosophyPemberton, Henry
Science
A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy
Pemberton, Henry
Newton, Isaac, 1642-1727. Principia
31. IN the last place tides may come to the same port from different
seas, and as they may interfere with each other, they will produce
particular effects. Suppose the tide from one sea come to a port at the
third hour after the moon’s passing the meridian of the place, but from
another sea to take up six hours more in its passage. Here one tide
will make high water, when by the other it should be lowest; so that
when the moon is over the equator, and the two tides are equal, there
will be no rising and falling of the water at all; for as much as the
water is carried off by one tide, it will be supplied by the other.
But when the moon declines from the equator, the same way as the port
is situated, we have shewn that of the two tides of the ocean, which
are made each day, that tide, which is made when the moon is above the
horizon, is greater than the other. Therefore in this case, as four
tides come to this port each day the two greatest will come on the
third, and on the ninth hour after the moon’s passing the meridian, and
the two least at the fifteenth and at the twenty first hour. Thus from
the third to the ninth hour more water will be in this port by the two
greatest tides than from the ninth to the fifteenth, or from the twenty
first to the following third hour, where the water is brought by one
great and one small tide; but yet there will be more water brought
by these tides, than what will be found between the two least tides,
that is, between the fifteenth and twenty first hour. Therefore in the
middle between the third and ninth hour, or about the moon’s setting,
the water will be at its greatest height; in the middle between the
ninth and fifteenth, as also between the twenty first and following
third hour it will have its mean height; and be lowest in the middle
between the fifteenth and twenty first hour, that is, at the moon’s
rising. Thus here the water will have but one flood and one ebb each
day. When the moon is on the other side of the equator, the flood will
be turned into ebb, and the ebb into flood; the high water falling
out at the rising of the moon, and the low water at the setting. Now
this is the case of the port of Batsham in the kingdom of Tunquin in
the East Indies; to which port there are two inlets, one between the
continent and the islands which are called the Manillas, and the other
between the continent and Borneo.
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