XV. The Bakerian lecture.—On the tides at the port of London

The discussions of tide observations which I have had the honour to lay before the Society on different occasions, have been instituted with reference to the transit of the moon immediately preceding the time of high water. The Tables which I have thus prepared for London and Liverpool, in order to serve for predicting the phenomena, answer the purpose for which they were intended, and may also afford some notions with respect to the laws of the phenomena, and to the degree of accuracy of which the inquiry is susceptible, impeded by the rude manner in which the observations are made, and by accidents. But when the discussion is instituted with reference to the transit immediately preceding the time of high water, the law of the variations in the interval between the moon’s transit and the time of high water is obscured. The discussion of nineteen years’ observations of tides at the London Docks, which I now offer, has been made with reference to the moon’s transit two days previous, and will, I trust, be viewed with interest, for it proves that the laws to which the phenomena are subject accord generally with the views propounded long since by Bernoulli.