170 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



be seen by the arguments advanced and the facts stated in the 

 Appendix to the second edition. 



344. Thus we behold sea-shells and animalcules in a new light. 



In every department of nature there is to be found this self-ad- 

 justing principle — this beautiful and exquisite system of compen- 

 sation, by which the operations of the grand machinery of the uni- 

 verse are maintained in the most perfect order. 



[For another view of the origin of the salts of the sea, adopted * 

 upon more matured reflection, see Appendix F.] 



344. Thus we behold sea-shells and animalculcB in a new light. 

 May we not now cease to regard them as beings which have little 

 or nothing to do in maintaining the harmonies of creation ? On 

 the contrary, do we not see in them the principles of the most ad- 

 mirable compensation in the system of oceanic circulation ? We 

 may even regard them as regulators, to some extent, of climates 

 in parts of the earth far removed from their presence. There is 

 something suggestive, both of the grand and the beautiful, in the 

 idea that, w^hile the insects of the sea are building up their coral 

 islands in the perpetual summer of the tropics, they are also en- 

 gaged in dispensing warmth to distant parts of the earth, and in 

 mitigating the severe cold of the Polar winter. 



Surely an hypothesis which, being followed out, suggests so 

 much design, such perfect order and arrangement, and so many 

 beauties for contemplation and admiration as does this, which, for 

 the want of a better, I have ventured to oifer with regard to the 

 solid matter of the sea w^ater, its salts and its shells — surely such 

 an hypothesis, though it be not based entirely on the results of 

 actual observation, can not be regarded as wholly vain or as ah 

 together profitless. (See Appendix G.) 



