'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎2] (163/524)

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2 REMARKS ON THE
most commercial cities of Asia, Bombay has not yet been provided with
tide-tables eyen of sufficient accuracy to satisfy iiaiitical men.
More than 19 years ago, the Bast (Per.) A Persian custom allowing an individual to seek asylum at a designated location. India Company s Goyermnent
sanctioned the establishment oi a proper tide-gauge at the Colaba
Observatory ; and from December 1S45, tne Government has liberally
defrayed the expenses of the Observatory, an essential portion of the
duties of which is the correct observation of the tides. It is greatly to
be regretted, that for some time these were fiecpiently interrupted, and
from a remark made in the volume ox Observations for 1858, it maybe
inferred that, even some of those published are unworthy of confidence.
The slight repairs necessary having been effected since then, the ob
servations have been more continuous, and probably also much more
trustworthy. At the last meeting of this Geographical Society, the
volume of Observations for 1861 was presented. It contains the ob
servations of about 670 tides during the year ; an examination of which,
to some extent, I lately attempted during a few days’ leisure, and now
beg to submit some of the results to this Society, in the belief, that the
subject at least may not be entirely without interest to some of the mem
bers, and with the hope that, by calling attention to it, some one may be
induced to add further to our knowledge of the tides at this port. Li
1847, as soon as two years’ observations had been collected, Commander
Montriou, then Superintendent of the Colaba Observatory, with a zeal
and industry in the highest degree creditable, had a tentative solution
of the problem of the Bombay tides attempted.* The formula*, whose
constants were derived, were modifications of those suggested by Dr.
Whewell, in his “ Empirical Laws of the Tides,” and these have been used
ever since, without correction from the mass of accumulated observations,
for the computation of the times of high-water, annually published in the
Bombay Almanacs. Complaints have been made about the inaccuracy
of these predicted times, and it occurred to me, to compare the results
of Mr. Montriou’s formulae with the actual observations for one whole
year, in order to ascertain how far the formulae might he depended
on, not without the expectation that, as they were founded on two
* After this paper had been read, I was informed that the reduction was effected
®y the late Professor Orlebar. I have accordingly altered the name in the following
parts of this.