This accomplished physicist began his researches in 1869, and has continued them up to the present time.

He has been able to demonstrate that these rhythmical oscillations occur in nearly all the Swiss Lakes (he studied the phenomena in nine of them), and that they follow in all cases the same general laws.

Those of the Lake of Geneva have received the most elaborate and prolonged investigation.

In March, 1876, Forel established a self-registering tide-gauge (_limni-metre enregistreur_) on the northern shore of this lake, at Morges; and, with the cooeperation of P.Plantamour, another one was installed in June, 1877, at Secheron, near the city of Geneva, at the southern extremity.

Since these dates, these two instruments have, respectively, been registering oscillations of the level of the water of the Lake of Geneva; and they are so sensitive as to indicate the waves generated by a steamer navigating the lake at a distance of ten or fifteen kilometers.
From a most searching investigation of all the phenomena presented by the _Seiches_ in the Swiss Lakes, Forel deduces the conclusion that they are really movements of steady uninodal oscillations (balanced undulations), in which the whole mass of water in the lake rhythmically swings from shore to shore.