132 0}i the Temperature of the JVater of the Sea. 



suits, and of the geological consequences which may brt 

 deduced from them. 



The teniperaturc of the sea water decreases according to 

 the depth. All the results of the observations hitherto niadt- 

 on this point, concur in proving that the deepest gwlphs of 

 the sea, as well as the summits of the highest mountains, 

 are continually covered with ice, ever? vndcr the equator: 

 whence it must necessarily follow that a very small number 

 of animals and vegetables can live there, if any exist at all. 

 *' Analogous results have proved," continues the author,, 

 '•' that a similar cooling existed at great depths in the prin- 

 cipal lakes of Swisserland and Italy. The observations of 

 Georgi, Gmelin, Pallas, Ledyard, and Patrin, in Siberia, 

 and those of that accurate observer vSaussure, prove that 

 the case in regard to the bosom of the earth has always been 

 the same when experiments have been made at the botton> 

 of mines. Similar results were obtahied in America by 

 Shaw, Mackenzie, Uml'rcville, and Kobscm. Onght not so 

 many facta united to leave us in some uncertainty in regard 

 to this theory, so generally idmitted, of an interior central 

 fire which maintains a uniform and constant temperature 

 of 10** in the whole mass of our globe, whether solid or 

 liquid ? Sliall v.e not one day be'obliged to recur to this old' 

 principle, so natural, and so agreeable besides to all thephre- 

 nomcna which daily take place before our eyes ? The only 

 source of the heat of our globe is that great luminary by 

 which it is enlightened : without it, without the salutary 

 influence of its rays, the whole of our earth, soon congealed 

 in every point, wonld l)e only an inert mass of ice. The 

 history of the winter of these polar regions would then be 

 that of the whole planet." 



However singular this last consequence of M. Peron may 

 appear, however contrary it may be to our present ideas in 

 regard to liie internal state of our globe, it nuist be allowed 

 that the facts collected by this naturalist in support of his 

 opinion are so numerous, and there prevails so much agree- 

 ment in all tl'.e results o))tained by observers, so different in 

 so many different places, and at periods so distant, and 

 with apparatus so little susceptible of comparison, that no 

 objection can be made to it by the respectable body before 

 whom it is laid. 



In the last place, the experiments of M. Humboldt, en- 

 tirely analogous to those of M. de Peron, to whom the Prus- 

 sian traveller was eager to pay a public Iribute of praise, give 

 it a new degree of weight. 



«' This 



