THE WINDS. 65 
CHAP? V& 
fE ABRIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS. 
Movements of the Waters through Evaporation.— Origin ef Winds.—Trade-Winds.— 
Calms.— Monsoons.— Typhoons.—Tornadoes.—Water-Spouts.—The Formation 
of Atmospherical Precipitations.— Dew —Its Origin.— Fog.— Clouds.—Rain.— 
Snow.—Hail Sources.—The Quantities of Water which the Rivers pour into the 
Ocean.—Glaciers and their Progress.—Icebergs.— Erratie Blocks.—Influence of 
Forests on the Formation and Retention of Atmospherical Precipitations.— 
Consequences of their excessive Destruction.—The Power of Man over Climate. 
—How has it been used as yet? 
NEITHER storms nor ocean-currents, nor ebb and flood, however 
great their influence, cause such considerable movements of the 
waters, or force them to wander so restlessly from place to place 
as the silent and imperceptible action of the warming sunbeam. 
In every zone evaporation is constantly active in impregnating 
the atmosphere with moisture, but the chief seat of its power is 
evidently in the equatorial regions, where the vertical rays of 
the great parent of ligl.t and heat plunge, day after day, into 
the bosom of ocean, and perpetually saturate the burning air 
with aqueous vapours. 
In this chapter I intend following these invisible agents of 
fertility and life, as they lightly ascend from the tropical seas, 
and accompanying them in their various transformations, until 
they once more return to the bosom of their great parent. A 
cursory view of the benefits they confer on the vegetable 
and animal world, as they wander over the surface of the land, 
will, I hope, agreeably occupy the reader, and serve to increase 
his admiration for that deep and dark blue ocean without 
which all organic life would soon be extinct upon earth. 
I begin with a few words on the winged carriers of marine ex- 
halations, the winds, which, although now and then detrimental or 
fatal to individuals by their violence, largely compensate for these 
