The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-11-03

You will n Il goodly company assem-
bled. Many Of the onlookers have been
doing this for years--it relieves the mo-
notony OF life in a small city. You peer
over the edge of the wharf.
Below you. thirty feet or more. is mud
Shiny. red, u~nlovely. You look across
the river bed. More mud, still red, Shiny.
unlovely. Here and there arc patches
Of water lying still or flowing Iazily sea-
ward. The opposite bank is more than
a mile away. Nothing az all to enthuse
over in this eXpanse of water and mud.
Suddenly you hear a faint rumble. Il
IL the bore. forming some dozen miles
below you. The rumble grows louder,
finally increasing TO a roar as OF many
railroad trains passing over a bridge.
A mile or 50 below the bend begins. You
watch that point, and around it comes a
wall Of foaming water five or six feet high.
The roar increases in intensity. As the
bore advances rapidly the spray flashes
into sight, woven by the mooEbeams into
fantastic shapes.
Before o realize it the wall OF water
is upon you and has passed. A few miles
further on and it ceases to be a bore. The
river bed is now all covered with water
The mud is mercifully covered up.
But you need not depart at once think
ing you have seen il all. For the bore
is but the advance agent Of the tide which
rises Enthusiastically and irresistibiy.
You may see il creep inch Try inch up
the piles of the wharf. II "A ship is moored
there you may watch the water reach her
keel, then reach upward gradually to the
water line. until at last she floats again
in the element for which she was intended.
A few hours and you are on the shores
Of a mighty river, ~navigable for big craft.
You call to mind that stretch Of mud and
you marvel
The oldest inhabitant will tell you that
bores to-day are not what they used to be.
Nowadays it is rare when one stretches
clear across the river.
There will be a bore on one side and lust
a ripple on the other. or there will be
two bores with a break of plain rising tide
between them. But years n years ago
all bores were good ones. yes, Stree. They
we're much higher and their roar was sim
ply in~describable.
As a matter of fact the bore is sometimes
dangerous to shipping. Not many years
ago a big spring tide bore seized a large
schooner moOred at the Pleasant street
wharf. tore il from its fastenings and carried
il rapidly upstream. A mile up the river
the schooner was jammed against a bridge
and the masts snapped OF of her.
The bore is caused by III inward rush
of tidewater opposing the slow outward
movement of the river water. The tide as
it drives in is first wedged by the narrow
ing banks.
Il encounters the river water. pushes Il
up to a fiattened angle and finally breaks
over it with "A roar. Thus II appears as a
huge breaker which moves majestically
onward.
The accompanying illustration shows a
bore OF about five feet in height. On the
right Of the picture the high water mark
can be seen near the top OF the wharves.
Before the tide of which this bore is the fore
runner gets through rieing it will reach
that high water mark. Just remember
that the river bed is about a mile wide and
you will get some idea Of the immense body
OF water that comes up the Petitcodiao twice
a day