192 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



the north, are within this range. The Persian Gulf and the Red 

 Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian, all fall within 

 it. And why are they planted there ? Why are they arranged to 

 the northeast and southwest under this lee, and in the very direc- 

 tion in which theory makes this breadth of thirsty winds to pre- 

 vail ? Clearly and obviously, one of the j^urposes in the divine 

 economy w^as, that they might replenish with vapor the winds 

 which are almost vaporless w^hen they arrive at these regions in 

 the general system of circulation. And why should these winds 

 be almost vaporless ? They are almost vaporless because their 

 route, in the general system of circulation, is such, that they are 

 not brought into contact with a water-surface from which the net- 

 ful supplies of vapor are to be had ; or, being obtained, the sup- 

 plies have since been taken aw^ay by the cool tops of mountain 

 ranges over which these winds have had to pass. 



397. In the Mediterranean, the evaporation is greater than the 

 precipitation. Upon the Red Sea there never falls a drop of rain ; 

 it is all evaporation. Are we not, therefore, entitled to regard the 

 Red Sea as a make-weight, thrown in to regulate the proportion 

 of cloud and sunshine, and to dispense rain to certain parts of the 

 earth in due season and in proper quantities ? Have we not, in 

 these two facts, evidence conclusive that the winds which blow^ over 

 these two seas come, for the most part, from a dry country — from 

 regions which contain few or no pools to furnish supplies of vapor ? 



398. Indeed, so scantily supplied with vapor are the winds which 

 pass in the general channels of circulation over the water-shed 

 and sea-basin of the Mediterranean, that they take up there more 

 water as vapor than they deposit. But, throwing out of the ques- 

 tion w^iat is taken up from the surface of the Mediterranean itself, 

 these winds deposit more w^ater on the water-shed w^hose drainage 

 leads into that sea than they take up from it again. The excess 

 is to be found in the rivers which discharge into the Mediterrane- 

 an ; but so thirsty are the winds which blow across the bosom of 

 that sea, that they not only take up again all the water that those 

 rivers pour into it, but they are supposed by philosophers (§ 252) 

 to create a demand for an immense current from the Atlantic to 

 supply the waste. 



399. It is estimated that three* times as much water as the 

 * Vide article " Physical Geography," Encyclopsedia Britannica. 



