I. Discussion of tide observations at Bristol

This paper contains the result of an attempt to discover empirically the Laws of the Diurnal Inequality of the Times and Heights, and of the Solar Inequality of the Times of High Water at the Port of Bristol. The observations employed in this discussion are those that have been taken by the Bristol Self-registering Tide-Gauge, which has been kept steadily at work, with a few occasional interruptions, from the period of its erection in 1837 to the present time. This instrument consists essentially of a Clock, a Cylinder, a Ploat, and a Pencil, by means of which every tide marks a curve on a sheet of paper, from which the time and height of high water are ascertained. Its details are described, and an engraving of it given, both in the Philosophical Transactions for 1838, Part II., p. 249, and in the Article “Tides and Waves” in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, written by the present Astronomer Royal.