United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Fifty or sixty years ago the N.E. coast ports were all tidal; no harbours of refuge; no twenty-four feet on any of the bars at low water as there is now; no piers or breakwaters projecting as they do to-day far into the German Ocean. It therefore frequently happened that during neap tides there was not sufficient water over the bars for even the shallowest drafted vessels.

The sea-wall, directly ahead of the ship, and which never showed itself above the surface more than two or three inches, in any part of it, and that only at exceedingly neap tides, was now not only bare for a long distance, but parts rose ten and fifteen feet above the surrounding sea.

It being neap tide, we were enabled to take the ship thus close to the shore, and as it was the nearest approach we could make to the head of the Gulf, another boat expedition was set on foot to explore it, consisting of the yawl and gig, in which Lieutenant Gore and myself left the ship the same afternoon.

At spring tides, when the sun and the moon conspire, the elevations rise much higher and the depressions sink much lower than they do at neap tides, when the high water raised by the moon is reduced by the action of the sun. There are also many minor irregularities which show the tides to be not nearly such simple phenomena as might be at first supposed.

At the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to mend the dyke, and pump the water out; and begin again, beaten but not conquered, the same everlasting fight with wind and wave which their forefathers have waged for now 800 years. He who sees as I have seen a sight like that, will repine no more that the primaeval forest is cut down, the fair mere drained.

Every morning she used to rub them well and trim the wicks. She used to light them herself and neap the burners with sugar-candy, and on Divali Day she used to worship them and make them suitable offerings. But, directly the little daughter-in-law was driven away, none of the lamps were any longer cared for. On the next Divali Day the king was returning from a hunt, and he camped under a tree.

The phenomenon was of daily occurrence until about the time of neap tides." At Howard's Point the vessel was anchored while the party continued the exploration in the small boat. The Cocopas whom they met were entirely friendly. These people wore no clothing beyond the breechcloth, and were plastered from head to foot with mud. The width of the river varied from two hundred yards to half a mile.

At neap tides, and in moderate weather, this place was dry, with a fine salt smell; and with nothing in front of it but the sea, and nothing behind it but solid stone wall, any one would think that here must be commune sacred, secret, and secluded from eavesdroppers. And yet it was not so, by reason of a very simple reason.

It was now 4 a.m., and the Deal coxswain, cool and sturdy as his native Kentish oak, knowing that the combination of an easterly gale with neap tides sometimes produces an 'in-tide' at high-water, and seeing the Ramsgate lifeboat carried to leeward, gave the order to 'down foresail! when well outside the wreck, and anchored E. by S. of her.

She sat up, but nothing happened until just after dawn. Then she saw the little Brahman girl sweeping the courtyard and her brother cleaning the floor. Soma got up and said, "Children, who are you?" They replied, "We are Brahmans." "But I am only a washerwoman," said Soma; "I am a low-caste woman, why do you sweep my courtyard and neap my floor?