236 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



also perish. Under such a chance arrangement, man would no 

 longer be able to rely upon the early and the latter rain, or to 

 count with certainty upon the rains being sent in due season for 

 seed-time and harvest. And that the rain will be sent in due 

 season, we are assured from on high ; and when we recollect who 

 it is that "sendeth" it, we feel the conviction strong within us — 

 that He that sendeth the rain has the winds for his messengers ; 

 and that they may do his bidding, the land and the sea were ar- 

 ranged, both as to position and relative proportions, where they 

 are, and as they are. 



658. It should be borne in mind that, by this hypothesis, the 

 southeast trade-winds, after they rise up at the equator (Plate I.), 

 have to overleap the northeast trade-winds. Consequently, they 

 do not touch the earth until ne^r the tropic of Cancer (see the beard- 

 ed arrows, Plate VII.), more frequently to the north than to the 

 south of it ; but for a part of every year, the place where these 

 vaulting southeast trades first strike the earth, after leaving the 

 other hemisphere, is very near this tropic. On the equatorial side 

 of it, be it remembered, the northeast trade-winds blow ; on the 

 polar side, what were the southeast trades, and what are now the 

 prevailing southwesterly winds of our hemisphere, prevail. Now 

 examine Plate YIL, and it will be seen that the upper half of the 

 Eed Sea is north of the tropic of Cancer ; the lower half is to the 

 south of it ; that the latter is within the northeast trade-wind re- 

 gion ; the former, in the region where the southwest passage winds 

 are the prevailing winds. 



659. The River Tigris is probably evaporated from the upper 

 half of this sea by these winds ; while the northeast trade- winds 

 take up from the lower half those vapors which feed the Nile with 

 rain, and which the clouds deliver to the cold demands of the 

 Mountains of the Moon. Thus there are two ' ' wind-roads" crossing 

 this sea : to the windward of it, each road runs through a rainless 

 region ; to the leeward there is, in each case, a river rained down. 



660. The Persian Gulf lies, for the most part, in the track of 

 the southwest winds ; to the windward of the Persian Gulf is a 

 desert ; to the leeward, the Eiver Indus. This is the route by 

 which theory would require the vapor from the Eed Sea and Per- 



