The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-14
French Scienfisfs Show
 True Movement Of Tides

Paris, March 1a--M. Camille Flam- marion. the celebrated astronomer. in amplifying his recent statement with regard to earth tides, says:
 gently obtained In the study Of the tides of the earths crust, I added that those results wore so extraordinary that they were hardly belisvable.
 "Yet, if one examines the methods used to obtain these results, if one takes into confederation the minute care with which the observations have been made. it. becomes impossible to doubt the reality Of the movement just discovered.
 "As everyone Is aware. the ocean tides are due to the attraction of the moon and the sun; their amplitude Is known; their height in each harbor Is calculated together with the corres- bonding hours. and 1t Is shown that the observation always agree with the calculation. have been wondering whether this double attraction of the sun and the moon had not an influence on the ter restrial globe itself, and they have also been trying to discover the periodical movements which result from it.
 The fact can only be discovered by devietions from the vertical. Already in 1897 Antoine d'Abbadie experiment. ed for this purpose, using spirit levels but failed to notice anything but variations due to the temperature. In 1879 Zollner, the astronomer, con- structed in Prague a horizontal pendu- lum, by means of which. he declared. one would be able to appreciate devia. tions from the vertical of 1-1,000 Of second of an arc. But the results | were somewhat confused. In 1874 M | Bouquet de la Greye, at the time of the observation of the transit of Venus. | used on Campbell Island and for the | same purpose a pendulum with ampii- flying scales.
 "In 1878 Lord Kelvin used long pendulum and a small galvanometer mirror. This apparatus was improved the following year. at Cambridge University, by O. and H. Darwin, who placed 1t in water in order to save 1t from the perturbing influence of the variations of temperature. The sensf- bilfty was such that at five yards dis tance an observer could produce de- viation of the image by merely throw | ing the weight of his body from one leg to the other. In 1883. in the eel lars of the Paris Observatory, M. Wolf | ICpCdtCu thc CAPCAAShSSo oA <'A. N ~hD badie.
 "All these researches. carefully made, only succeeded in revealing variations from the vertical due to the diurnal heating of the sun. the effect of which. by the way. Is fifty times greater than that of the attraction or 1 the moon. Nothing had been establish ed which could be considered as an ef- feet of the attraction of the sun or l the moon.
 When at the last sitting of the Astron omicai Society of France. M c. LallemanJ. a member of the Bureau des Longitudes and director of the General Survey of France. explained at my re- quest and with great skill all the ex- fessed that for the past twenty years everyone had despaired on discovering nothing and had abandoned the sub ject; but that one scientist, enthusias- tic and indefatigable, Professor Hecker,, of the Prussian Geodetical In- stitute. had energetically set to work, 1 first for twenty-nlne months-Decem- l Der 1, 1902. to the end of April. 1905-- then again from April, 1905 to July. 1907, and established at eighty feet above the ground an apparatus of ex- treme precision made of two horizon tai pendulums in a room where the temperature GIT deg. co and the moisture were strictly the same all the year round
 T should state the deviations which have to be measured do not as a rule exceed HOO of second of an arc. At the extremity of a pendulum one metre in length they produce move- ments which measure only a few hun dredths of thousanjths of a milli- metre.
 "In other words. they are imper- nil bay to make them visible? By the mode of suspension of the pendulum. by mir TOTS reflecting In the distance one luminous point and recording photo- graphically the image on a cylinder. Never was the inventiveness of scien- lists more subtly taxed.
 Tt is thus that waves were record cd, twice a day, like those of the ocean tides. These waves have been examined hour by hour, and eventually those were recognized which were due to solar attraction and those caused by lunar attraction.
 The curves are neat and precise. and their amplitude is so small that 1t Is indeed wonderful to think that one has managed to discover them.
 "The results of these concorjant comparisons prove that the terrestrial globe possesses a certain elasticity about the same as that of steel. It Is interesting to note that Lord Kelvin had come to the same conclusion by his calculations on the procession of the equinoxes.
 'If the globe were liquid. fluid. these tides would be three times stronger.
 But, however small, these earth tides produce on the surface of the globe, a real uudulation which Is real ly astounding. for calculations show that 1t reaches 7-S inches!
 Tn other words, twice a day the ground rises to that amount. Since the tide Is double, and manifests itself at the same time at the Antipodes, the diameter of the globe consequently in- creases 15 3-4 inches, under that in- fluence.
 That wave Is constantly turning, and constantly alters the form of the ball on which we live, and which is apparently immovable.
 How Is 1t that we do not notice it? Because this continual and slow oscillation is effected on the whole surface of the globe. To places which are close to each other nothing varies. and since our judgments can only be formed by comparison 1t becomes i'm possible for us to notice the slightest variation.
 But the fact remains that all ground moves, and ceaselessly. The ground is not homogeneous, and yet 1t Is impossible to find any connection between these earth-tides and earth quakes.
 'Tf we are able to observe the ocean, tides 1t Is because of the shores At