Tides in the Bay of Fundy

Abstract

HAVING resided for some years in the neighbourhood of this bay, I am able to give a little information respecting its tides. The bay splits into two at its inner end. One of these branches leads through a narrow channel into the broad basin of Minas. The other, called Chegnecto Bay, is not interrupted by any such contraction, and is therefore more favourable for the formation of very high tides. This bay itself divides at its upper end into two, and one of these, called Chepody Bay, contracts very gradually for some thirty miles inland, forming the estuary of the Petitcodiac River. This is the place where the highest tides occur, and as far as I have been able to learn, their maximum height is 70 feet. A powerful “bore” is formed by the incoming waters. The captain of the steamer Emperor, which plied between St. John, N.B., and Windsor, N.S., informed me that the highest tide in any part of Minas Basin was about 55 feet. This would probably be at the head of Cobequid Bay, near Truro. Noel Bay, which is mentioned in Dr. Haughton's letter (NATURE, vol. xix. p. 432), is in Minas Basin, rather more than half way from its narrow mouth to the head of Cobequid Bay. If the range here at ordinary spring tides is 50.5 feet, any one looking at the map and knowing the effect of funnel shaped estuaries, would be prepared to learn that there is a range of from 60 to 70 feet in Chepody Bay and the estuary of the Peticodiac, at strong springs.