72 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



phere and the laws wliicli govern tlie ocean (§ 164) are laws which 

 were put in force by the Creator when the foundations of the 

 earth were laid, and that therefore they are laws of order ; else, 

 why should the Gulf Stream, for instance, be always where it is, 

 and running from the Gulf of Mexico, and not somewhere else, 

 and sometimes running into it ? AYhy should there be a perpet- 

 ual drought in one part of the world, and continual showers in 

 another ? Or why should the conscious winds ever heed the voice 

 of rebuke, or the " waves of the sea clap their hands with joy?" 



202. To one who looks abroad to contemplate the agents of 

 Importance of ob- uaturc, as hc sccs thcm at work upon our planet, 

 nature^ ^'^°^ ^° no expression uttered or act performed by them is 

 without meaning. By such an one, the wind and rain, the vapor 

 and the cloud, the tide, the current, the saltness, and depth, and 

 warmth, and color of the sea, the shade of the sky, the tempera- 

 ture of the air, the tint and shape of the clouds, the height of the 

 tree on the shore, the size of its leaves, the brilliancy of its flow- 

 ers — each and all may be regarded as the exponent of certain 

 physical combinations, and therefore as the expression in which 

 Nature chooses to announce her own doings, or, if we please, as 

 the language in which she writes down or elects to make known 

 her own laws. To understand that language and to interpret 

 aright those laws is the object of the undertaking which we now 

 have in hand. No fact gathered from such a volume as the one be- 

 fore us can therefore come amiss to those who tread the walks of 

 inductive philosophy ; for, in the hand-book of nature, every such 

 fact is a syllable ; and it is by patiently collecting fact after fact, 

 and by joining together syllable after syllable, that we may finally 

 seek to read aright from the great volume which the mariner at 

 sea as well as the philosopher on the mountain each sees spread 

 out before him. 



203. There have been examined at the Observatory more than 

 Materials for this ^ milliou of obscrvatlous ou the force and direction 

 chapter. q£ ^-^q wiuds at sca.* The discussion of such a 

 mass of material has thrown much light upon the circulation of 

 the atmosphere ; for, as in the ocean (§ 201), so in the air, there is 

 a regular system of circulation. 



204. Before we proceed to describe this system,- let us point out 



* Nautical Mcnograj)]!, No. 1, 1859. 



