THE ATMOSPHERE. 



95 



and the ocean, upon the right adjustment and due performance of 

 which depends not only the hfe of that plant, but the well-being 

 of every individual that is found in the entire vegetable and ani- 

 mal kingdoms of the world ? 



When the east winds blow along the Atlantic coast for a little 

 while, they bring us air saturated with moisture from the Gulf 

 Stream, and we complain of the sultry, oppressive, heavy atmos- 

 phere ; the invalid grows worse, and the well man feels ill, be- 

 cause, when he takes this atmosphere into his lungs, it is already 

 so charged with moisture that it can not take up and carry off that 

 which encumbers his lungs, and which nature has caused his blood 

 to bring and leave there, that respiration may take up and carry 

 off. At other times the air is dry and hot ; he feels that it is con- 

 veying off matter from the lungs too fast ; he realizes the idea 

 that it is consuming him, and he calls the sensation parching. 



156. Therefore, in considering the general laws which govern 

 the physical agents of the universe, and regulate them in the due 

 performance of their offices, I have felt myself constrained to set 

 out with the assumption that, if the atmosphere had had a greater 

 or less capacity for moisture, or if the proportion of land and wa- 

 ter had been different — if the earth, air, and water had not been 

 in exact counterpoise — the whole arrangement of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms would have varied from their present state. 

 But God chose to make those kingdoms what they are ; for this 

 purpose it was necessary, in his judgment, to establish the pro- 

 portions between the land and water, and the desert, just as they 

 are, and to make the capacity of the air to circulate heat and 

 moisture just what it is, and to have it to do all its work in obe- 

 dience to law and in subservience to order. If it were not so, 

 why was power given to the winds to lift up and transport moist- 

 ure, or the property given to the sea by which its waters may be- 

 come first vapor, and then fruitful showers or gentle dew^s ? If 

 the proportions and properties of land, sea, and air were not ad- 

 justed according to the reciprocal capacities of all to perform the 

 functions required by each, why should we be told that he " meas- 

 ured the waters in the hollow^ of his hand, and comprehended the 

 dust in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the 

 hills in a balance ?" Why did he span the heavens, but that he 

 might mete out the atmosphere in exact proportion to all the rest, 



