348 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



we may credit the concurring teftimony of all 

 travellers, is the hotteft part of Africa. 



From all this taken together, we have a glimpfe 

 of the necefllty of two Continents, to ferve mutu- 

 ally as a check to the movements of the Ocean, 

 It is impoflibleto conceive how Nature could have 

 difpofed them otherwife, than by extending one 

 of them lengthways, and the other in breadth, in 

 order that the oppofed Currents of their Ocean 

 might balance each other, and that there might 

 thence refult a harmony, adapted to their fliores, 

 and to the iflands contained in their bafons. 



Were we to fuppofe thefe two Continents pro- 

 jefted circularly, from Eafl to Weft, under the 

 two temperate Zones, the circulation of the Sea 

 contained between the two, would be, as we have 

 feen, too violently accelerated by the conftant ac- 

 tion of the Eaft-wind. There could be no longer 

 any communication by Sea, from the Line toward 

 the Poles ; confeqiiently, no icy effufions in that 

 Ocean, no tides, no cooling, and no renovation, 

 of it's waters. If we fuppofe, on the contrary, 

 both Continents extended from North to South, 

 as America is, there would be no longer any ori- 

 ental Current in the Ocean ; the two halves of 

 each Sea would meet in the midft of their channel, 



and 



