§ 41-43. THE SEA AND THE ATMOSPHERE. ][5 



tling the caloric away in the vesicles of its vapor, it first makes 

 it impalpable, and then conveys it, by unknown paths, to the most 

 distant parts of the earth. The materials of which the coral builds 

 the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this rest- 

 less leveler from mountains, rocks^ and valleys in all latitudes. 

 Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon, or out of 

 the gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi, others 

 from the battle-fields of Europe, or from the marble quarries of 

 ancient Greece and Rome. These materials, thus collected and 

 carried over falls or down rapids, are transported from river to 

 sea, and delivered by the obedient waters to each insect and to 

 every plant in the ocean at the right time and temperature, in 

 proper form, and in due quantity. 



41. Treating the rocks less gently, it grinds them into dust, or 

 Its marvelous pow- pouuds them iuto saud, or rolls them in pebbles, 

 ^^^' rubble, or boulders: the sand and shingle on the 

 sea-shore are monuments of the abrading, triturating power of 

 water. By water the soil has been brought down from the hills 

 and spread out into valleys, plains, and fields for man's use. 

 Saving the rocks on which the everlasting hills are established, 

 every thing on the surface of our planet seems to have been re- 

 moved from its original foundation and lodged in its present 

 place by water. Protean in shape, benignant in office, water,, 

 whether fresh or salt, solid, fluid, or gaseous, is marvelous in its 

 powers. 



42. It is one of the chief agents in the manifold workshops in 

 It caters on land for which aud by which thc earth has been made a 

 insects of the sea. Jiabitation fit for man. Circulating in veins below 

 the surface, it pervades the solid crust of the earth in the fulfill- 

 ment of its offices ; passing under the mountains, it runs among 

 the hills and down through the valley in search of pabulum for 

 the moving creatures that have life in the sea. In rivers and in 

 rain it gathers up by ceaseless lixiviation food for the creatures 

 that wait upon it. It carries off from the land whatever of solid 

 matter the sea in its economy requires. 



43. The waters which dash against the shore, which the run- 

 Leaching. ning strcams pour into the flood, or with which the 



tides and currents scour the bottom of their channel waj^s, have 

 soaked from the soil, or leached out of the disintegrated materials 



