I saw the long line of the vacant shore,
The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
So begins the octave of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s sonnet “The Tides;” a particularly effective poem as it depicts so succinctly an occurrence most everyone who has visited a sea shore will have witnessed. But just what is it that causes the above mentioned tides to “flow” in the first place?
It’s actually quite an interesting phenomena, one perhaps not limited, as David George Bowers and Emyr Martyn Roberts explain in their new Tides; A Very Short Introduction, to the Earth’s oceans alone.
Presenting accessible explanations of well-observed tidal processes, as well as more recent discoveries from the deep ocean and coastal seas, the authors carry on the well-established tradition of the now over 600-volume Very Short Introductions series in providing their readers with the opportunity to enlighten themselves about this fascinating subject.
