The tide

The tide, the motion of ebb and flood in the sea. This is a phenomenon seen by everyone who has ever been to the seashore. Water rises and subsides again just as regularly. For most of us, this rhythm is a fact, a natural occurrence that was always there and always will be. There is a reasonably simple explanation for it, though.
As early as the third century BC, Aristotle linked tidal motions to the moon. In 42 AD, Pliny the Elder gave a fairly exact description of the phenomenon and its connection to the sun and the moon. The oldest extant tide tables were compiled by an English monk in the 13th century; but doubtless, some sort of tidal predictions must have existed already in prehistoric times.

The word getij in Dutch, the English word tide and the German word Gezeiten all derive from the word time. That itself shows that the tide is inextricably bound up with time, which is logical if we consider that tidal motions are based on the apparent motions of the moon and the sun about the earth. Because the motions of these two celestial bodies are very constant, the rhythm of ebb and flood is too.
On the following pages a description is given of how tides begin at sea and what happens on the Dutch coast. This explanation is for the greater part the same as the equivalent chapter in "Het getij & wij". This book (in Dutch) was published by Sdu Publishers in the Hague on the occasion of the celebration of the hundredth edition of the "Dutch Tide Tables". The authors are Eric Burgers and Ruud Hisgen of Direct Dutch in the Hague, together with contributors from the National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management/RIKZ. Meanwhile this book is out of print.

This account is about ten pages long. You can read right through, which we recommend, or separately, in whatever order you please.