278 APPENDIX. 



dium ill its waters — the most abundant of its solid ingredients — is 

 regulated. The insects of the sea can not build their structures 

 of this salt, for it would dissolve again, and as fast as they could 

 separate it. But here the ever-ready atmosphere comes into play, 

 and assists the insects in regulating the salts. It can not take 

 them up from the sea, it is true, but it can take the sea away 

 from them ; for it pumps up the water from these pools that have 

 been barred off, transfers it to the clouds, and they deliver it back 

 to the sea as fresh water, leaving the solid matter it contained in 

 a solid state behind. 



These are operations that have been going on for ages ; proof 

 that they are still going on is continually before our eyes ; for the 

 "hard water" of our fountains, the marl-banks of the valleys, the 

 salt-beds of the plains, and the coral islands of the sea, are monu- 

 ments in attestation. 



There is no proof, nor is there any reason for the belief, that the 

 sea is growing Salter or fresher. Hence we infer that the opera- 

 tions of addition and extraction are reciprocal and equal ; that the 

 effect of rains and rivers in washing down is compensated by the 

 processes of evaporation and secretion in taking out 



If the sea derived its salts originally from the rivers, the geolog- 

 ical records of the past would show that river beds were scored 

 out in the crust of our planet before the sea had deposited any of 

 its fossil shells and infusorial remains upon it. If, therefore, we 

 admit the Darwin theory, we must also admit that there was a pe- 

 riod when the sea was without salt, and consequently without 

 shells or animals either of the silicious or calcareous kind. If 

 ever there were such a time, it must have been when the rivers 

 were collecting and pouring in the salts which now make the brine 

 of the ocean. But while the palseontological records of the earth, 

 t on one hand, afford no evidence of any such fresh-water period, 

 the Mosaic account is far from being negative w^th its testimony 

 on the other. According to it, we infer that the sea was salt as 

 early,- at least, as the fifth day, for it was on that day of creation 

 that the waters were commanded to "bring forth abundantly the 

 moving creature that hath life." It is in obedience to that com- 

 mand that the sea now teems with organisms ; and it is marvel- 

 ous how abundantly the obedient waters do bring forth, and how 

 wonderful for variety as well as multitude their progeny is. All 

 who pause to look are astonished to see how the prolific ocean 

 teems and swarms with life. The moving creatures in the sea 

 constitute in their myriads of multitudes one of the "wonders of 

 the deep." 



The last sentence had not been copied when I received an ab- 

 stract log from one of that noble corps of mariners who are ob- 

 serving the phenomena of the sea for me, in which there is a very 



