92 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



twenty-four thousand long, is the yearly business of this invisible 

 machinery. What a powerful engine is the atmosphere ! and 

 how nicely adjusted must be all the cogs, and wheels, and springs, 

 and pinions of this exquisite piece of machinery, that it never wears 

 out nor breaks dow^n, nor fails to do its work at the right time 

 and in the right way ! 



146. In his annual report to the Society ( Transactions of the 

 Bombay Geographical Society from May, 1849, to August, 1850, 

 vol. ix.), Dr. Buist, the secretary, states, on the authority of Mr. 

 Laidly, the evaporation at Calcutta to be " about fifteen feet an- 

 nually ; that between the Cape and Calcutta it averages, in Octo- 

 ber and November, nearly three fourths of an inch daily ; between 

 10° and 20° in the Bay of Bengal, it was found to exceed an inch 

 daily. Supposing this fo be double the average throughout the 

 year, we should," continues the doctor, " have eighteen feet of 

 evaporation annually." 



147. If, in considering the direct observations upon the daily 

 rate of evaporation in India, it be remembered that the seasons 

 there are divided into wet and dry ; that in the dry season, evap- 

 oration in the Indian Ocean, because of its high temperature, and 

 also of the high temperature and dry state of the wind, probably 

 goes on as rapidly as it does any where else in the world ; if, more- 

 over, we remember that the regular trade-wind regions proper 

 are, for the most part, rainless regions at sea ; that evaporation is 

 going on from them all the year round, we shall have reason to 

 consider the estimate of sixteen feet annually for the trade-wind 

 surface of the ocean not too high. 



148. We see the light beginning to break upon us, for we now 

 begin to perceive why it is that the proportions between the land 

 and water were made as we find them in nature. If there had 

 been more water and less land, we should have had more rain, and 

 vice versa; and then climates would have been different from 

 what they now are, and the inhabitants, animal or vegetable, 

 would not have been as they are. And as they are, that wise 

 Being who, in his kind providence, so watches over and regards 

 the things of this world that he takes notice of the sparrow's fall, 

 and numbers the very hairs of our head, doubtless designed them 

 to be. 



The mind is delighted, and the imagination charmed, by con- 



