[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] have never scientifically studied
tides, floods, and frosts, but, since I started my Diary in 1870, I have taken great interest in them, and recorded a good many obser- vations. May I question the statement in your article that a strong west wind will produce a very high spring tide ? Granted that, as the Channel narrows from S.W. to N.E., a west wind will force the water into the Straits, so that if at a new or full moon much rain water be descending, a very high tide, or even a bore, as in the Severn, or a " mascaret," as in the Seine, may take place. One need only look at the map to see the compression that must take place. But With regard to the Thames it is different.
Many years ago I took the list of times of high water all round the coast, and Marking each time on a Bradshaw railway map I discovered, as I thought, that a great Atlantic tidal stream comes from the south-west, and that on reaching the Irish and British coasts it divides, the main stream going north past the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, at a great pace, round by the Orkneys into the North Sea, where it bends to the right, and goes south till it reaches the mouth of the Thames. The other and weaker stream goes north-east, up the Channel at a much less pace, so that, though it has much less distance to go, it only reaches the mouth of the Thames at the same time as the main stream. The meeting of the two forces the water up the Thames, which is why we are blessed with such strong tides, why the tide runs so far as up to Teddington Lock, and why the Port of London is so convenient and busy.
Other things being at all equal the tide is higher at Putney Bridge (according to my observations) with an east wind than with a west wind. I remember very well the great snow- storm of January 18th, 1881. At two o'clock that morning, having been to a dance at Rev. R. P. Hooper's, I said good- bye to him on his doorstep, facing east. The moon was full and high, and the sky apparently clear, with hard frost ; but very thin clouds were drifting rapidly across its face. He said, " There will be snow before morning." At nine o'clock the snow was from three to five feet deep against the door of our house (10, Adelaide Crescent). The road was blocked, but owing to the north-easterly gale at fifty miles an hour the west side of the Crescent was clear of snow. The London Bridge express was, I am told, four hours late. The drift lay in the hollows of the South Downs to the end of March, the roads were blocked as far as Cornwall, but I think the storm of snow did not extend farther north than Leicester. From this gale arose the case of " Rust v. the St. Katharine Dock Co.," with which I had to do. Owing to the combination of the fall moon with the strongest north-east wind ever recorded at Greenwich, the tide in the Thames was the highest till then recorded, viz., five feet six inches above Trinity high water mark, though there was no land flood water, but on the contrary, owing to long and hard frost, the Thames was very low. The Dock Company was bound by statute to keep its walls up to the height of five feet above T.H. water mark, which was considered ample, as no tide had ever been so high before ; but the water came over, flooded a number of houses which Mr. Rust had just built, and froze hard in them. Mr. Rust brought an action for damages against the Dock Company, who pleaded " the Act of God," and proved that the tide was the highest and the north-east wind the strongest ever recorded. I remember Mr. (afterwards Justice) Rigby, Q.C., saying that he was out in the storm, that it would hurt his feelings to be told that it was not quite an extra- ordinary day, fit to be called " the Act of God." Nevertheless, Mr. Rust got substantial damages, as he proved that the Dock Company's tenant had failed to keep their part of the wall up higher than four feet eight inches above T.H. water mark. But from the above I think we may conclude that it was the concurrence of not three but four things that pro- duced the disaster ; viz., big inland floods, a gale from the north-west persisting in the North Sea, a gale from the south- west in the Channel, and, of course, the spring tide at the full moon. That all these four things should come together again, though, of course, possible, is excessively unlacely.— I am, Sir, &c.,
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