302 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



tion, these researches into the physics of the sea unfold and spread 

 out before us for contemplation. In doing this, we shall have a 

 free pardon from those at least who delight " to look through na- 

 ture up to nature's God." 



870. What two things in nature can be apparently more remote 

 in their physical relations to each other, than the climate of West- 

 ern Europe and the profile of a coast-line in South America ? Yet 

 this plate reveals to us not only the fact that these relations be- 

 tween the two are the most intimate, but makes us acquainted 

 with the arrangements by which such relations are established. 



871. The barrier which the South American shore-line opposes 

 to the escape, on the south, of the hot waters from this great equa- 

 torial caldron of St. Roque, causes them to flow north, and in Sep- 

 tember, as the winter approaches, to heat up the western half of 

 the Atlantic Ocean, and to cover it with a mantle of warmth above 

 summer heat as far up as the parallel of 40°. Here heat to tem- 

 per the winter climate of Western Europe is stored away as in an 

 air-chamber to furnace-heated apartments ; and during the winter, 

 when the fire of the solar rays sinks down, the westwardly winds 

 and eastwardly currents are sent to perform their office in this be- 

 nign arrangement. Though unstable and capricious to us they 

 seem to be, they nevertheless "fulfill His commandments" with 

 regularity and perform their offices with certainty. In tempering 

 the climates of Europe with heat in winter that has been bottled 

 away in the waters of the ocean during summer, these winds and 

 currents are to be regarded as the flues and regulators for distrib- 

 uting it at the right time, and at the right places, in the right 

 quantities. 



872. By March, when " the winter is past and gone," the fur- 

 nace which had been started by the rays of the sun in the pre- 

 vious summer, and which, by autumn, had heated up the ocean 

 in our hemisphere, has cooled down. The caldron of St. Roque, 

 ceasing in activity, has failed in its supplies, and the chambers of 

 warmth upon the northern sea, having been exhausted of their 

 heated water, which has been expended in the manner already ex- 

 plained, have contracted their limits. The surface of heated wa- 

 ter which, in September, was spread out over the western half of 



