Although the tides are due to the attraction of the solar bodies, mainly to that of the moon, the mode in which the result is brought about is somewhat complicated. It may briefly and somewhat incompletely be stated as follows: Owing to the fact that the attracting power of the earth is about eighty times greater than that of the moon, the centre of gravity of the two bodies lies within the earth. About this centre the spheres revolve, each in a way swinging around the other. At this point there is no centrifugal motion arising from the revolution of the pair of spheres, but on the side of the earth opposite the moon, some six thousand miles away, the centrifugal force is considerable, becoming constantly greater as we pass away from the turning point. At the same time the attraction of the moon on the water becomes less. Thus the tide opposite the satellite is formed. On the side toward the moon the same centrifugal action operates, though less effectively than in the other case, for the reason that the turning point is nearer the surface; but this action is re-enforced by the greater attraction of the moon, due to the fact that the water is much nearer that body. In the existing conditions of the earth, what we may call the normal run of the tides is greatly interrupted. Only in the southern ocean can the waters obey the lunar and solar attraction in anything like a normal way. In that part of the earth two sets of tides are discernible, the one and greater due to the moon, the other, much smaller, to the sun. As these tides travel round at different rates, the movements which they produce are sometimes added to each other and sometimes subtracted--that is, at times they come together, while again the elevation of one falls in the hollow of the other. Once again supposing the earth to be all ocean covered, computation shows that the tides in such a sea would be very broad waves, having, indeed, a diameter of half the earth's circumference. Those produced by the moon would have an altitude of about one foot, and those by the sun of about three inches. The geological effects of these swayings would be very slight; the water would pass over the bottom to and fro twice each day, with a maximum journey of a hundred or two feet each way from a fixed point. This movement would be so slow that it could not stir the fine sediment; its only influence would perhaps be to help feed the animals which were fixed upon the bottom by drawing the nurture-bringing water by their mouths.