Why, that inlet ran like Niagara rapids!" "What an evidence this gives one of the strength of the moon's attraction!" said Raed.

"All this great mass of water--thirty feet high--is drawn in here by the moon.

What enormous force!" "And this vast power is exerted over a distance of two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles," remarked Kit.
"I can't understand this attraction of gravitation,--how it is exerted," said Wade.
"No more can anyone," replied Raed.
"It is said that this attraction of the moon, or at least the friction of the tides on the ocean-bed which it causes, is exerted in opposition to the revolution of the earth on its axis, and that it will thus at some future time stop that motion altogether," Kit remarked.

"That's what Prof.Tyndall thinks." "Then there would be an end of day and night," said I; "or rather it would be all day on one side of the earth, and all night on the other." "That would be unpleasant," laughed Wade; "worse than they have it up at the north pole." "It is some consolation," said Raed, "to know that such a state of things is not likely to come in our time.

According to a careful calculation, the length of the day is not thus increased more than a second in a hundred and sixty-eight thousand years." "But how are we to go aboard, sir ?" inquired Hobbs, to whom our present fix was of more interest than the long days of far-distant posterity.
The boat had been tossed about here and there, and was now some twenty or thirty yards astern of the schooner.
"Have to swim for it," said Donovan.
"Not in this icy water, I hope," said Kit.