In the Southern Ocean this motion of the
water is so well known to mariners who double Cape Horn in sailing from
San Francisco to New York, that they now run considerably lower down in
order to ride this tide eastward, than they did in former times. Here
then we have one fact of water tide more comprehensive, at least, than
the tractive theory of the moon. We have also the fact of two great
promontories in Capes Horn and Good Hope, where this great tidal wave
must strike against, and they produce constant oscillations of the water
to and fro, and produce gurgitation and regurgitation in all the gulfs
and rivers that line the coasts of the Northern, or more properly, the
Land Hemisphere. These gurgitations swell the water highest in the
places where the seas become the narrowest, as the more northern
latitudes. In addition to these daily oscillations of the water, there
are constant eddy currents, denominated "Gulf Streams," all agreeing in
their courses and motion to this theory of the ocean tides.
When our present received tide theory of moon attraction was first laid
down, the fact of the water of the great Southern ocean rolling round
faster than the solid parts of our planets was not known.
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