Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-03-07
STUDY HARVESTING
OF BAY OF FUNDY
Tremendous Tides in Funnel
Shaped Opening Potential
Source Of Power.

Harvesting water power has meant
In tho past making rainwater stand
and deliver" its energy while 1t was
hurrying from high ground back to
the sea. But there has been much
talk in recent years of imprisoning
Underwater that has ventured far up
inlets and exacting an energy toll
from 1t before 1t flows back seward.
The famous Bay of Fundy, one Of the
tide record ders, known to every
geography .:A6ent. which IS the OBJ
ject of the latest suggestion along
this line, is the subject of the follow
ing bulletin from the headquarters Of
the National Geographic Society:
Because 1t has a short, distinctive
name and an extraordinary reputa-
ton, Fundy Is probably better known
by name at least than any other bay
in the world" says the bulletin.
Twice every day tremendous
quantity of ocean water swishes up
this l46-mile bay. reaching depths of
SO. 40 and SO feet toward the head.
Then 1t turns rather quickly and
rushes out again. The thing has
crippled the imaginations of genera
lions Of juvenile geography students
memories. Now it Is taking a de-
layed grip on technical imaginations,
and engineers are wondering why
these thousands of tons of rushing
water cannot be made to turn power
wheels.
"One big factor in Fundy's SUPER
tides can be seen from a map. The
inlet has funnel-shaped opening, into
which the ocean tide is "wedged.' But
a more important factor is not ap-
parent from maps. The bottom of
the bay is a huge inclined plane,
than 400 feet at the mouth. slopes up
with remarkable regularity at rate
of about four feet a mile to the head
of the bay 145 miles away. The in
rushing water, then, is not only
rowing channel. but is squeezed up
ward so to speak, by the gently
sloping bottom, and as long as the
push comes from behind 1t continues
to pile up In the upper bay. When
mentum OF the inflow is exhausted
the piled-up water simply runs down
hill again.
Wharves Sixty Feet High.
1.-THE high waters of Fundy are in
some ways disconcerting. Wharves
for some Of the little ports near the
bays head must be perched on piles
outward many of the settlements are
left behind two or three miles of
mud flats.
THE most ambitious scheme for
Harvesting Fundy's great tides pro-
poses to throw huge dams across the
mouth of the inlet which is there
forty-eight miles wide. This would
entail international cooperation, for
territory of the United States, the
northeastern corner of Maine. Such
dam, too, would impound water in
Passamaquoddy bay and the st. CroiX
river through which the international
boundary runs. The plan has been
opposed because it would set up a
barrier to commerce into and from
Eastport, Me-, and numerous other
communities in Maine, New Bruins
wick and Nova Scotia
THE head of the Bay of Fundy Is
separated from the waters of the Gulf
of ST. Lawrence to the north by a
neck of land only fifteen miles wide.
At high tide sea level is twenty feet
neck. One of the many suggestions
for Harvesting the bays tides, the
practicability of which is not appar-
emit, looks to the bui'1ing of a dam
far up in the inlet to captare the sue
cessive tiday flows, and the cutting of
a mill race to the north along which
power could be generated continual
ly from the tidal reservoir.
funQy mas S1RnlHCdnCe dSlUe
from its tides. Champaign. the famous
French explorer. of the new world.
helped to establish on its shore in
1904 Port Royal, now Annapolis, the
first permanent French settlement in
America. In 1913 English settlers
from Virginia, taking a hand in the
Franco-British struggle, attacked
Port Royal and almost totally de-
stroyed 1t. The Annapolis valley to-
day is described as the garden spot
of Nova Scotia"