THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 



169 



the tendency of the instrument to change its performance with the 

 changing influences of temperature. 



This contrivance is called a compensation ; and a chronometer 

 that is well regulated and properly compensated w^ill perform its 

 office with certainty, and preserve its rate under all the vicissi- 

 tudes of heat and cold to which it may be exposed. 



340. In the clock-work of the ocean and the machinery of the 

 universe, order and regularity are maintained by a system of com- 

 pensations. A celestial body, as it revolves around its sun, flies 

 oflf under the influence of centrifugal force ; but immediately the 

 forces of compensation begin to act ; the planet is brought back 

 to its elliptical path, and held in the orbit for which its mass, 

 its motions, and its distance were adjusted. Its compensation is 

 perfect. 



341. So, too, with the salts and the shells of the sea in the ma- 

 chinery of the ocean ; from them are derived principles of com- 

 pensation the most perfect ; through their agency the undue ef- 

 fects of heat and cold, of storm and rain, in disturbing the equi- 

 librium, and producing thereby currents in the sea, are compen- 

 sated, regulated, and controlled. 



342. The dews, the rains, and the rivers are continually dis- 

 solving certain minerals of the earth, and carrying them off to the 

 sea. This is an accumulating process ; and if it were not com- 

 pensated, the sea would finally become as the Dead Sea is, sat- 

 urated with salt, and therefore unsuitable for the habitation of 

 many fish of the sea. 



The sea-shells and marine insects aflford the required compensa- 

 tion. They are the conservators of the ocean. As the salts are 

 emptied into the sea, these creatures secrete them again and pile 

 them up in solid masses, to serve as the bases of islands and con- 

 tinents, to be in the process of ages upheaved into dry land, and 

 then again dissolved by the dews and rains, and washed by the 

 rivers away into the sea. 



343. Darwin, many years ago, during one of those moments of 

 inspiration which enabled him to foreshadow the steam-boat and 

 the locomotive, told philosophers whence came the salts of the 

 sea. 



*' Gnomes ! You then taught transuding dews to pass 

 Through time-faU'n woods and root-inwove morass 



