20 Temperature of the Terrestrial Globe. 



4 



merit, chemical action may cause salt to be taken up by this soft wa- 

 ter, and the winds produce a mechanical mixture with the inferior 

 adjacent beds, still the specific gravity of the chemical and mechanic- 

 al mixture will be always less than that of the inferior water. Far- 

 ther let us follow in imagination the pure water of the glaciers with 

 its temperature of to the equator, where the highest temperature 

 of the sea water is 30° C, the pure water will not sink ; for the 

 specific difference between one temperature and the other is ^\^ 

 and the difference between the sea-water under the equator and 

 pure water, both at the temperature 0, is fo Thus it is in no case 

 possible, that the water from the polar icebergs, can get to the bottom 

 of the ocean, to lower its temperature. 



We conclude with certainty from all that has been said relative to 

 the temperature of the sea, in its depths, that the bottom of the ocean 

 is about the temperature of 0, of our thermometers, and that this tem- 

 perature increases with the elevations above the bottom* We con- 

 clude that this phenomenon is diametrically contrary to what ought 

 to take place if there existed below the bottom of the ocean a source 

 of heat, which communicated to the ocean its actual temperature and 

 that the ocean proves in this respect, in relation both to cause and 

 effect, the contrary of what observation points out on the continents. 

 We have shown in the preceding chapters, so complete a differ- 

 ence between the observations made in the interior of the continent, 

 and in the depths of the sea in the range of temperature, that it may 

 be called a contradiction. But there is no real contradiction in na- 

 ture, and when it is supposed that we have found one, it is our igno- 

 rance which makes it so by attributing to one and the same cause, 

 two phenomena which the ocean offers us. 



The temperature of the sea diminishes from the surface towards 

 the bottom, at first rapidly, then slowly, and finally during the great- 

 ter part of the depth with extreme slowness ; whence we conclude 

 agreeably to the experiments of M. Lenz, that at the bottom of the 

 ocean the temperature must be about the zero of our thermometers. 

 We are further obi 

 owing to the action of the solar rays, and that the proper tempera- 

 ture of the globe at this depth cannot exceed that indicated by the 

 zero of the thermometer. 



But as it has been demonstrated that the hypothesis of a globe ig- 

 nited internally cannot resolve the marine problem, it is also certain 

 that the temperatures on land which have been observed to increase 



