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Now and then, during the spring-tides, when the water is very low, small portions of it are found, just enough to keep up the excitement, and cause dozens of children from all the neighbourhood round to gather there in a swarm, to search among the seaweeds, and dig in the sands, and venture out in the sea itself as far as they dare.
Old Piper says, when he was a boy, the creek used to fill at spring-tides." At the top of the hill Kit looked about him. The Wish thrust out into the brown beach, a natural watch-tower, some hundred feet high. This was no doubt the bump of green he had seen from the dew-pond. Eastward a long sweep of shingle embraced Pevensey Bay. Westward, Beachy Head shouldered out into the sea.
At certain periods during the twenty-four hours the mill would stop running, and the hours when this happened would be constantly changing. The inconvenience from the manufacturer's point of view of a deficiency of power during neap tides might not be compensated by the fact that he had an excessive supply of power at spring-tides.
The painting of the upper part was nearly finished this afternoon; and the Smeaton had brought off a quantity of brushwood and other articles, for the purpose of heating or charring the lower part of the principal beams, before being laid over with successive coats of boiling pitch, to the height of from eight to twelve feet, or as high as the rise of spring-tides.
In this inlet is good anchorage in seven, six, five, and four fathom; and places very convenient for laying a ship down, where, at spring-tides, the water does not rise less than sixteen or eighteen feet. The tide flows at the full and change of the moon about 11 o'clock. I have already observed that here is no fresh water, nor could we procure refreshment of any other kind.
Having, on the previous evening, arranged matters with the landing- master as to the business of the day, the signal was rung for all hands at half-past seven this morning. In the early state of the spring-tides the artificers went to the rock before breakfast, but as the tides fell later in the day, it became necessary to take this meal before leaving the ship.
But I had no guess of it then as I sat writing by the fireside, in what seemed the spring-tides of a somewhat pedestrian inspiration; nor yet day by day, after lunch, as I read aloud my morning's work to the family. It seemed to me original as sin; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye. I had counted on one boy, I found I had two in my audience.
After this we had very light and baffling winds, and we sighted more than one suspicious-looking craft; but they did not, apparently, like our appearance, and made sail away from us. At length we came off Alarache. A bar runs across the mouth of the harbour, which even at spring-tides prevents large ships from entering, though there were sufficient water on it to allow us to get over.
But I was just thinking when you spoke to me what a happy thing it is that the tide does not vary by an even six hours, but has the odd minutes; whence we see endless changes in the relation of the water to the times of the day. And then the spring-tides and the neap-tides! What a provision there is in the world for change!" "Yes.
Such being the case, it was resolved, however difficult and perilous the undertaking, to erect a beacon of masonry upon the rock. The length of the Carr Rock, from north to south, measures seventy-five feet, but its greatest breadth, as seen at low-water of spring-tides, is only twenty-three feet; hence it was not possible to obtain a base for a building of greater diameter than eighteen feet.
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