94 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



complete, the adjustments of this machine perfect. These coun- 

 terpoises give ease to the motions, stabiUty to the performance, 

 and accuracy to the workings of the instrument. They are com- 

 pensations. 



155. Whenever I turn to contemplate the works of nature, I 

 am struck with the admirable system of compensation, with the 

 beauty and nicety with which every department is poised by the 

 others ; things and principles are meted out in directions the most 

 opposite, but in proportions so exactly balanced and nicely ad- 

 justed, that results the most harmonious are produced. 



It is by the action of opposite and compensating forces that the 

 earth is kept in its orbit, and the stars are held suspended in the 

 azure vault of heaven ; and these forces are so exquisitely ad- 

 justed, that, at the end of a thousand years, the earth, the sun, 

 and moon, and every star in the firmament, is found to come to 

 its proper place at the proper moment. 



Nay, philosophy teaches us, when the little snow-drop, which in 

 our garden walks we see raising its beautiful head to remind us that 

 spring is at hand, was created, that the whole mass of the earth, 

 from pole to pole, and from circumference to centre, must have 

 been taken into account and weighed, in order that the proper de- 

 gree of strength might be given to the fibres of even this little plant. 



Botanists tell us that the constitution of this plant is such as to 

 require that, at a certain stage of its growth, the stalk should bend, 

 and the flower should bow its head, that an operation may take 

 place which is necessary in order that the herb should produce 

 seed after its kind ; and that, after this, its vegetable health re- 

 quires that it should lift its head again and stand erect. Now, if 

 the mass of the earth had been greater or less, the force of grav- 

 ity would have been different ; in that case, the strength of fibre 

 in the snow-drop, as it is, would have been too much or too little ; 

 the plant could not bow or raise its head at the right time, fecund- 

 ation could not take place, and its family would have become ex- 

 tinct with the first individual that was planted, because its *' seed" 

 would not have been " in itself," and therefore it could not repro- 

 duce itself. 



Now% if we see such perfect adaptation, such exquisite adjust- 

 ment, in the case of one of the smallest flowers of the field, how 

 much more may we not expect "compensation" in the atmosphere 



