78 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



north pole, as at V, P ; an efflux thence as an upper current, 

 A, B, C, until it meets K, S (also an upper current) over the calms 

 of Cancer. Here there is supposed to be a descent, as shown by 

 the arrows C D, S T. This current, A, B, C, D, from the pole, 

 now becomes the northeast trade-wind, D, E, on the surface, until 

 it meets the southeast trades, O, Q, in the equatorial calms, where 

 it ascends as E, F, and travels as F, G with the upper current to 

 the calms of Capricorn, thence as H, J, K, with the prevailing 

 northwest surface current to the south pole, thence up with the 

 arrow P, and around with the hands of a watch, and back, as in- 

 dicated by the arrows along L, M, N, O, Q, E, S, T, U, Y. 



216. The Bible frequently makes allusion to the laws of na- 

 A, our knowledge of turc, their Operation and effects. But such allu- 

 has ^^increLe°df "so sious are oftcu SO Wrapped in the folds of the 

 orthe^Biwf 'E peculiar and graceful drapery with which its lan- 

 proved. guage is occasionally clothed, that the meaning, 



though peeping out from its thin covering all the while, yet lies 

 in some sense concealed, until the lights and revelations of sci- 

 ence are thrown upon it ; then it bursts out and strikes us with 

 exquisite force and beauty. As our knowledge of nature and 

 her laws has increased, so has our understanding of many passages 

 in the Bible been improved. The Psalmist called the earth " the 

 round world ;" yet for ages it was the most damnable heresy for 

 Christian men to say the world is round ; and, finally, sailors cir- 

 cumnavigated the globe, proved the Bible to be right, and saved 

 Christian men of science from the stake. " Canst thou bind the 

 sweet influences of Pleiades?" Astronomers of the present day, 

 if they have not answered this question, have thrown so much 

 light upon it as to show that, if ever it be answered by man, he 

 must consult the science of astronomy. It has been recently all 

 but proved, that the earth and sun, with their splendid retinue 

 of comets, satellites, and planets, are all in motion around some 

 point or centre of attraction inconceivably remote, and that that 

 point is in the direction of the star Alcyon, one of the Pleia- 

 des! Who but the astronomer, then, could tell their "sweet in- 

 fluences?" And as for the general system of atmospherical cir- 

 culation which I have been so long endeavoring to describe, the 

 Bible tells it all in a single sentence : " The wind goeth toward 

 the south, and turneth about unto the north ; it whirleth about 



