Tide ledgers
True, False, or Not Given. Watch for a claim that is narrower than the passage.
Watch out! Some answers look true but change a small detail like the person, time, or amount.
The Salt Office in Greyhaven has kept a tide ledger since 1894. Clerks recorded the height of the afternoon high tide, the wind, and whether fishing boats left the harbour. They did not record rainfall until 1952, when a flooded cellar ruined a decade of paper and the council insisted on a second copy stored upstairs. Historians who now digitise the books treat the pre-1952 rainfall column as empty, not as evidence of dry years. A 2018 study used the boat column to argue that winter sailings fell after 1970. The author was careful: the ledger shows fewer departures, not fewer fish, and it cannot say whether crews stayed home because of weather, fuel prices, or a change in the market. Volunteers who photograph the pages are asked not to flatten curled corners. The office would rather lose a margin than crack a page that has already survived a flood.