The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1901-04-26
NO.. II
CAUSE THE TIDES.
THE THEORY THAT THEY ARE DUE TO
ATTRACTION IS NOW OPPOSED.

ATTRACTION Is NOW OPPOSED.
Many theories as TO the cause of va
rious phenomena have been demolish-
ed by the advance of science. 1t is
only within the past few years, for ex-
ample, that the belief in the efficacy
of the gulf stream to moderate the
climate of northwestern Europe has
been practically supplanted by an ex-
planation that seems more adequate.
Just now the time honored theory OF
the cause of tides is being assaulted. 1t
remains to be seen whether the evil
dence in favor of the new theory is SO
we'll grounded as to relegate the old
belief that the mutual attraction of the
earth. moon and sun has the peculiar
effect upon the sea which results in the
tidal wave.
The opponents of the theory that
tides are caused by attraction call at
tention to the work of the Challenger
expedition in 1872. One Of the main
objects of this expedition was to solve
the problem of ocean currents. The
scientific world accepted its demonsta-
tion that the circulation of ocean cur
rents is due to differences of tempera-
ture in the air which cause persistent
atmospheric currents that drive along
with them pant of the surface waters
of the sea, and also to differences in
the temperature of the ocean waters
causing their movement and inter-
mingling. The moon has no hand in
this work. Neither, say the opponents
of the tidal theory, is it the cause of
the other circulation of the ocean
known as the tides.
Mr.. Alexander Brownie, who sets
forth the new theory of the tides in
"The Bulletin of the American Geo.
graphical Society, gives many reasons
for discrediting the part assigned to
the moon as "tide LITTER" Among
them is the fact that the tide is in
stantaneous over many degrees of lon
gitude, while the moon takes ours to
travel the same distance. The new
theorists rely upon gravitation to un-
lock the tidal mystery.
They say, as Professor G. H. Dar-
win does in his book "The Tides" that
the form of equilibrium can never be
attained by the ocean. They assert
that the tide is due to different levels
in contiguous masses of water, one
mass standing. at high level immedi-
ately contiguous to another at low
level. 1t is well known, for example,
that when tide is high in vast area
around the Bermudas, extending clear
to our coasts, it is low in the waters of
Greenland and the West Indies. The
theory is that when the tide is high in
this large Bermuda basin it's higher
waters must gravitate towards tue con-
tiguous lower waters. In like manner,
when tide is high in the Greenland and
West Indies basin, it is low in the Ber-
muda basin, and their high waters
gravitate simultaneously toward Ber-
muda's lower level; thus high levels
and low levels on the ocean surface con-
stantly succeed one another and the
tidal phenomena are produced.
The theory of fgravitation is thus ar
rayed against that of attraction as ex-
planning tidal phenomena. 1t is we'll
that this scientific controversy has
arisen. Science grows by the knock
ing over as well as the setting up of
theories. Truth is often evolved when
opposing theories clash. Some men of
science hold that the tidal problem is
insoluble, but the present opposition
to the old theory may possibly estab-
lish the cause of tides on grounds so
convincing that there will no longer
be room for divided opinion.