Years ago, before there were any railroads, New York city had thousands
of tons of merchandise it wished to send out West. Teams were few and
slow, so they asked the moon to help. It was ready; had been waiting
thousands of years.
We shall soon see that it is easy to slide millions of tons of coal
down hill, but how could we slide freight up from New York to Albany?
It is very simple. Lift up the lower end of the river till it shall be
down hill all the way to Albany. But who can lift up the end of the
river? The moon. It reaches abroad over the ocean and gathers up
water from afar, brings it up by Cape Hatteras and in from toward
England, pours it in through the Narrows, fills up the great harbor,
and sets the great Hudson flowing up toward Albany. Then men put their
big boats on the current and slide up the river. Six hours later the
moon takes the water out of the harbor and lets other boats slide the
other way.
New York itself has made use of the moon to get rid of its immense
amount of garbage and sewage. It would soon breed a pestilence, and
the city be like the buried cities of old; but the moon comes to its
aid, and carries away and buries all this foul breeder of a pestilence,
and washes all the harbor and bay with clean floods of water twice a
day. Good moon! It not only lights, but works.
The tide in New York Harbor rises only about five feet; up in the Bay
of Fundy it ramps, rushes, raves, and rises more than fifty feet high.
In former times men used to put mill wheels into the currents of the
tides; when they rushed into little bays and salt ponds they turned the
wheels one way; when out, the other.