When the sun and moon act conjointly on the tides, which is at the change and full of the moon, they are stronger and run higher than at other times, and are called spring tides; but when the sun and moon are 90 degrees apart, their attractive powers, being in opposition to each other, occasion the tides to be weaker and lower than at other times, and these are called neap tides. The word neap is derived from the Saxon; it signifies low, decrescent, and is used only of the tide. These different heights of tide are observed to succeed each other in a regular series, diminishing from the greatest to the least, and then increasing from the least to the greatest, according to the age and situation of the moon.
“The moon turns ocean in his bed,
From side to side, in constant ebb and flow,
And purifies from stench his watery realms.”
Sir Isaac Newton calculated the attractive powers of the sun and moon on the tides, and found the attraction of the latter to be about three times greater than that of the former.
Water is found to exist in four states: namely, solid, or ice; liquid, or water; vapor, or steam; and in a state of composition in other bodies. The younger Lemery observes, that ice is only the re-establishment of the parts of water in their natural state; that the mere absence of fire is sufficient to account for this re-establishment; and that the fluidity of water is a real fusion, like metals exposed to the fire; differing only in this, that a greater quantity of fire is necessary to the one than the other.
Underneath the poles, water is always solid; there it is similar to the hardest rocks, and may be formed by the chisel of the statuary like a stone. The following circumstance, noticed by Bishop Watson, will show the solidity that water is capable of acquiring when divested of a large portion of caloric. It is related that at the whimsical marriage of Prince Gallitzen, in 1739, the Russians applied ice to the same purposes as stone. A house, consisting of two apartments, was built with large blocks of ice; and the icy cannon, which were fired in honor of the day, performed their office more than once without bursting.
During the severe winter of 1740, observes M. de Bomare, a palace of ice, 52 feet long, 16 wide, and 20 high, was built at Petersburgh, according to the most elegant rules of art. The river Neva afforded the ice, which was from two to three feet thick, blocks of which were cut and embellished with various ornaments. When built up, the different parts were colored by sprinkling them over with water of various tints. Six cannons, made of and mounted with ice, with wheels of the same matter, were placed before the palace; and a hempen bullet was driven by one of these cannons, in the presence of the whole court, through a board two inches thick, at the distance of sixty paces. Cowper remarks,——
“No forest fell,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,