APPENDIX. 277 



The sea-birds that join the ship as she clears Austraha will, it 

 3s said, follov/ her to this region, and then disappear. Even the 

 chirp of the stormy-petrel ceases to be heard here, and the sea it- 

 self is said to be singularly barren of " moving creatures that have 

 life." 



E.— Page 155, ^ 297. 

 MAGNESIA IN SEA WATER, 



It is the chloride of magnesium w^hich gives that damp, sticky 

 feeling to the clothes of sailors that are washed or wetted with 

 salt water, 



F.— Page 170, ^ 343. 

 THE QUESTION "WHENCE COME THE SALTS OF THE SEA?" RECONSIDERED. 



I ONCE thought with Darwin and those other philosophers who 

 hold that the sea derived its salts originally from the washings of 

 the rains and rivers. I now question that opinion ; for, in the 

 course of the researches connected with the " Wind and Current 

 Charts," I have found evidence, from the sea and in the Bible, 

 which seems to cast doubt upon it. The account given in the first 

 chapter of Genesis, and that contained in the hieroglyphics which 

 are traced by the hand of Nature on the geological column asto 

 the order of creation, are marvelously accordant. The Christian 

 man of science regards them both as true ; and he never overlooks 

 the fact that, while they differ in the mode and manner as well as 

 in the things they teach, yet they never conflict ; and they con- 

 tain no evidence going to show that the sea was ever fresh ; on 

 the contrary, they both afford circumstantial evidence sufficient 

 for the belief that the sea w^as salt as far back as the morning of 

 creation, or at least as the evening and the morning of the day 

 when the dry land appeared. 



That the rains and the rivers do dissolve salts of various kinds 

 from the rocks and soil, and empty them into the sea, there is no 

 doubt. These salts can not be evaporated, we know ; and we 

 also know that many of the lakes, as the Dead Sea, which receive 

 rivers and have no outlet, are salt. Hence the inference that 

 these inland water-basins received their salts from the washings 

 of the soil ; and consequently the conjecture arose that the great 

 sea derived its salts from the same source and by the same pro- 

 cess. But, and per contra, though these solid ingredients can not 

 be taken out of the sea by evaporation, they can be extracted by 

 other processes. We know that the insects of the sea do take out 

 a portion of them, and that the salt ponds and arms which, from 

 time to time in the geological calendar, have been separated from 

 the sea, afford an escape by which the quantity of chloride of so- 



