Ixvi EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 



wrecked on a defert ifland, may intrufl to the Currents of 

 the Seas, the fad tafk of announcing to the habitations of 

 Men, the news of his difafler, and of imploring afliftance. 

 Some Cëyx, perhaps, perifliing amidft the tempefts of Cape 

 Horn, may charge them to waft his expiring farewel ; and 

 the billows of the Southern Hemifphere fliall fpeed the 

 tender figh to the Ihores of Europe, to foothe the anguifh of 

 fome future Alcyone. 



After the fails which I have jufl: detailed, it is no longer 

 poflible to doubt, that the Indian and Atlantic Oceans have 

 their fources in the half-yearly and alternate fufions of the 

 ices of the South and North Poles ; as they have half- 

 yearly and alternate Currents perfectly correfponding to the 

 Summer and Winter of each Pole. Thefe Currents, it 

 may well be believed, flow with much greater velocity, than 

 the floating bodies on their furface. There is produced, at 

 the Equinoxes, a retrogreflive impulfion in the whole mafs 

 of their waters at once, as appears, at thefe eras, from the 

 univerfal agitation of the Ocean in all Latitudes. This 

 total, and almofl: inftantaneous fubvcrfion cannot pofliîbly be 

 produced by the operation of the Moon and of the Sun, 

 which proceed always in one diredion, and are conftantly 

 confined within the Tropics : but, as I have again and 

 again repeated, it is produced by the heat of the Sun, which 

 then pafles almofl inftantaneoufly from the one Pole to the 

 other, melts the frozen Ocean which covers it, communi- 

 cates, by the effufion of it's ices, new fources to the fluid 

 Ocean, oppofite direâions to it's currents, and inverts the 

 preceding preponderancy of it's waters. 



Much lefs is it pofTiblc to deduce, as has been done, the 

 caufe of the tides, from the adion of the Sun and of the 



Moon 



