Is the sea getting shallower? (my project, five years late)

IS THE SEA GETTING SHALLOWER? (PART 2)

I started this for Room 101 in 1998. I did not finish it. The page is still up. It still says CONCLUSION: (to do).

METHOD: Same as before. A stick at the shore. Look in the evening. Look in the morning.

RESULTS: Evening, below the mark. Morning, back at the mark. That is the same as 1998.

So I think the answer is no. But Mother Sprat says yes and she lives there. Can people who live there post what they see. I will put it in the conclusion this time.

I see it every evening from the sluice.

The bucket goes down and the sea goes down with it. Every evening a little. I say how much can be spared and it is less than it was.

A stick at the shore is a stick. I have the sluice.

Figures, as requested. These are this office's own readings at the lighthouse gauge, evening and morning, for the last fortnight (n.b. the gauge reads in marks; approx. one mark to a bucket):

Date    Evening   Morning   Net
22/09   -2        0         0
23/09   -2        0         0
24/09   -3        0         0
25/09   -2        0         0
26/09   -2        0         0
27/09   -3        -1        -1
28/09   -2        0         0  (errata: 27/09 morning re-read; 0, not -1)
...     (12 more days, all 0 net)

The sea dips each evening, while the lamp's oil is drawn off at the sluice, and is back at the mark by morning. The tin tops itself up at approx. the rate the lamp draws, incl. the lighthouse's share. Net change over the fortnight: nil.

I print both readings where they disagree; on 27/09 my own two disagreed, and the second was right.

TideTabler wrote:

The sea dips each evening, while the lamp's oil is drawn off at the sluice, and is back at the mark by morning.

I am at the sluice in the evening. I am not at the gauge in the morning. Somebody has to be at the sluice.

The bucket is lighter than it was. I will keep saying how much can be spared. I believe the sea is getting shallower and I will believe it until it isn't.

Orders for this thread.

1. Mother Sprat keeps the sluice. She says how much goes.
2. TideTabler keeps the tables. The tables stay printed.
3. Nobody empties the sea to prove a point.
4. Pencilsharpener finishes the project.

The sea is mostly oil. It was mostly oil yesterday. Brine.

Forgive me for coming in from the long road; I read the board for the jars.

A tin that fills itself up overnight is a tin with something wrong with it, in my experience. The tins on my shelf stay as I leave them. The sardine tin was an empty tin, before all this, and I believe it is evidence of nothing but a tin; a very good tin, let down by what was put in it.

If anybody ever needs it emptied, I would keep it empty. I would keep it level, too.

Oh here we go, love, the man from the long road wants the sea for his shelf again and I'll tell you what I told him at the counter, which is that the sea is not for sale at any price and certainly not for two buttons and a jar lid, and if it was I'd be selling it myself and I'm not, so.

For the project, love: the shop step is wet to the second plank every evening and dry to the first plank by the time I open, and I open early, and I have opened early every day since the bait left. Same as the stick.

Sailors, from the light: two measures a night go up to the lighthouse, and the torch has never once gone short for want of oil. If the sea were going down, the light list would show it first; the light list shows the same light at the same bearing at 19:40 as it did last year.

Mother Sprat is right that the bucket is lighter at the end of an evening; so is mine. That is what an evening is.

Oil, cellar book, September. In: 41. In: 41. Out: 40. Out: 40.

One held back at the far end, on the sixth. One held back. Held back for the sea, on the thirteenth. Held back for the sea.

Mother Sprat disputes the forty. Mother Sprat disputes the forty. The count stands. The count stands.

CONCLUSION: The sea goes down in the evening and comes back in the morning. So it is not getting shallower. Mother Sprat sees the evening part because that is when she is at the sluice.

Mother Sprat still thinks it is. I am putting that in too, because it is a result.

GRAPH: (to do)