Earth and Its Orbit - The Science of Navigation - page 13

correlation between spring tides and the phases of the moon. Writers from
classical antiquity such as Pliny the Elder and Strabo have much to say on
the subject; there are records of tide tables from eleventh-century China
and thirteenth-century England. The first mathematical analysis was from
the pen of (no surprise) Isaac Newton in the second edition of his famous
Principia . Newton's analysis was basically correct but missed a number of
FIGURE 1.5. The Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada, at high tide ( top ) and low tide. These
are probably the highest tides of the world, exceeding 50 feet at the top of the bay.
Images captured by NASA's Terra satellite in April 2001 and September 2002.