The old boatmen called it a tide which built up each day as they all approached the coal wharfs up north in the BCN. Early (in the day) boats got an easy run up but as the tide built later ones had their horses working harder. You also get Solitons in space when stars explode just right and create a spiraling Solitron which causes a near perfect ever expanding ring to form - a ring that goes on being visible for thousands of years - the ultimate standing wave.
--- On Thu, 7/17/08, Bob Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Bob Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Soliton To: [email protected] Date: Thursday, July 17, 2008, 1:23 PM 2008/7/17 Brian J Goggin [EMAIL PROTECTED] ie: > "Having reached the highest level of the great table-land, we > traversed a space of fifteen miles without a lock; and here a curious > phenomenon, illustrating the incompressibility of water, arrested our > attention. About every twenty or thirty minutes, the horses are > obliged to stop for five or six minutes, to take breath, the cause of > which was this: --- The velocity of the boat impelled the water with > such force that it gradually rose so as to approach the summits of the > banks, when it began to recoil, so as actually to form a back-water or > stream, when the horses were unable to make head, and therefore > stopped until the equilibrium of the canal was restored." > > I have not heard of that phenomenon before. Has anyone else come > across it? I think everybody who has tried to go too fast along a narrow and shallow canal has suffered from this effect. -- Bob [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
