APPENDIX. 279 



apposite remark. Captain Foster, of the American ship " Gar- 

 rick," the keeper of the log, is one of my most patient of observ- 

 ers. It is his custom to amuse himself by making drawings in his 

 abstract log of the curious animalcula? which, with the microscope, 

 he finds in the surface water alongside ; and though he has been 

 following the sea for many years, he never fails to express his 

 wonder and amazement at the immense numbers of living crea- 

 tures that the microscope reveals to him in sea water. Hitherto 

 his examinations related only to the surface waters, but in the log 

 now before me he went into the depths, and he was more amazed 

 than ever to see how abundantly the waters even there bring forth. 



"January 28th, 1855. In examining animalculse in sea water, 

 I have," says he, "heretofore used surface water. This afternoon, 

 after pumping for some time from the stern pump seven feet be- 

 low the surface, I examined the water, and was surprised to find 

 that the fluid was literally alive with animated matter, embracing 

 beautiful varieties." Of some he says, " Numerous heads, pur- 

 ple, red, and variegated." 



There is wonderful meaning in that word abundantly, as it 

 stands recorded in that Book, and is even at this day repeated by 

 the great waters. 



So far the two records agree, and the evidence is clear that the 

 sea was salt when it received this command. Do they afford any 

 testimony as to its condition previously? Let us examine. 



On the second day of creation the waters were gathered togeth- 

 er unto one place, and the dry land appeared. Before that period, 

 therefore, there were no rivers, and consequently no washings of 

 brine by mists, nor dew, nor rains from the valleys among the 

 hills. The water covered the earth. This is the account of Rev- 

 elation ; and the account which Nature has WTitten, in her own 

 peculiar characters, on the mountain and in the plain, on the rock 

 and in the sea, as to the early condition of our planet, indicates 

 the same. The inscriptions on the geological column tell that 

 there was a period when the solid parts of the earth's crust which 

 now stand high in the air were covered by w^ater. The geological 

 evidence that it was so, with perhaps the exception of a solitary 

 mountain peak here and there, is conclusive ; and when we come 

 to examine the fossil remains that are buried in the mountains and 

 scattered over the plains, we have as much reason to say that the 

 sea w^as salt when it covered or nearly covered the earth, as the 

 naturalist, when he sees a skull or bone whitening on the wayside, 

 has to say that it was once covered with flesh. 



Therefore we have reason for the conjecture that the sea was 

 salt " in the beginning," when " the waters under heaven were 

 gathered together unto one place," and the dry land first appeared ; 

 for, go back as far as we may in the dim records which young Na- 



