The tide reaches shore first at Country harbor, well up toward the Gut of Canso, and due west from...

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:54:13 -0500

The tide reaches shore first at Country harbor, well up toward the Gut of Canso, and due west from the deep entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence. Thirty minutes later it has reached the southwest end of Nova Scotia and the northeast end of Cape Breton island. After another half hour it reaches the south coast of Newfoundland. The tidal impulse seems to enter these waters by the entrance to the. St Lawrence, the Banks of Newfoundland barring off the ocean to the east. If this be true. it is here transmitted along a southeast-northwest line. That this is so is confirmed by the fact that the tide reaches the south side of Sable island an hour before it appears on the north side. Sable island stands close to the eastern margin of the shelf, southeast from Country harbor. The smaller ranges occur on the south coast of Newfoundland, where the tide has only indirect access to shore. MIDDLE BAY TIDES The Middle bay lies in a 120 angle of the coast, with vertex at Sandy Hook and the sides resting on Nantucket and Hatteras respectively. The continental shelf in this bay is widest off Sandy Hook, where it is channeled across by the submerged valley of the Hudson. Tidal ranges increase from about 2 feet at Nantucket and Hatteras to more than 4 feet at points on the Jersey shore and at Sandy Hooke. The extreme difference of times throughout the bay is about an hour, the distribution being somewhat irregular. There are three points of early, almost simultaneous, high water No Mans Land, near Marthas Vineyard ; Fire Island inlet, on the south coast of Long island ; Cape Hatteras. At four other points high water arrives almost simultaneously an hour later : Nantucket, south shore; Montauk point, entrance to Long Island sound ; Delaware Bay entrance ; Chesapeake Bay entrance. Between these points there is a good progression of times from early to late. It will be noticed that the entrance to New York bay is not a late point, like the Delaware and Chesapeake entrances, yet there is some delay from Fire island to Sandy Hook. In general, the time differences are of a magnitude perfectly explicable by variations of depth and shore configuration. The expectation that weak tides should early reach the headlands, Nantucket and Hatteras, and progress thence toward the bay head is not realized, save for amplitudes. The times are as early within as at the bay headlands. The amplitudes do increase up the bay.

mjaldon

The tide reaches shore first at Country harbor, well up toward the Gut of Canso, and due west from...