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To this island it was resolved to dispatch the Black pinnace occasionally, to fetch seals for us to eat, when smelts and muscles failed, for we could get no muscles at neap-tides, and only when the ebb was very low. In this miserable and forlorn condition we remained till the 6th of August, 1592, still keeping watch on the hills to look out for our general, suffering extreme anguish and vexation.

The boats left the floating light at a quarter-past nine o'clock this morning, and the work began at three-quarters past nine; but as the neap-tides were approaching the working time at the rock became gradually shorter, and it was now with difficulty that two and a half hours' work could be got.

The boats left the floating light at a quarter-past nine o'clock this morning, and the work began at three-quarters past nine; but as the neap-tides were approaching the working time at the rock became gradually shorter, and it was now with difficulty that two and a half hours' work could be got.

It being now the period of neap-tides, the water only partially left the rock, and some of the men who were boring on the lower ledges of the site of the beacon stood knee-deep in water. The situation of the smith to-day was particularly disagreeable, but his services were at all times indispensable.

The wind was at west, with light breezes, and fine clear weather; and as it was an object with the writer to know the actual state of the Bell Rock at neap-tides, he got one of the boats manned, and, being accompanied by the landing-master, went to it at a quarter-past twelve.

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.

At all events, it must suffice to contain the shipwrecked ones; and, as Mrs. Weldon and Nan noted with satisfaction, it was very dry. The moon being then in her first quarter, they need not fear that those neap-tides would reach the foot of the cliff, and the grotto in consequence. Then, nothing more was needed for a few hours' rest.

The rock seemed to be peculiarly adapted to their habits, for, excepting two or three days at neap-tides, a part of it always dries at low water at least, during the summer season and as there was good fishing-ground in the neighbourhood, without a human being to disturb or molest them, it had become a very favourite residence of these amphibious animals, the writer having occasionally counted from fifty to sixty playing about the rock at a time.

In figure 3 the moon has raised high tide at a and b, but the sun has counteracted its influence to some extent at c and d, thus producing neap-tides, which neither rise so high nor fall so low as do other tides. Tides attain various elevations in different parts of the world, partly owing to local influences.

I passed through Aaron's study, and an awe of reverence led me to pause before the table where he had worked for so many days, worked to make God's salvation seem harmonious with man's free-will; and, in loving all suffering human kind, newness of love for Aaron and for his cool-browed wife came to me: not that I had not loved them long, but there come neap-tides into the oceans of emotion, and work solemnly, awfully, until great frothings from the storm lie all a-tremble on the coasts of the land whither our course tends in the daily, hourly round of life.