§ 303. RAINS AND RIVERS. 125 



US that when the little snow-drop, which in our garden-walks 

 we see raising its head at " the singing of birds," to remind us 

 that "the winter is passed and gone," was created, the whole 

 mass of the earth, from pole to pole, and from circumference to 

 centre must have been taken into account and weighed, in order 

 that the proper degree of strength might be given to its tiny 

 fibres. Botanists tell us that the constitution of this plant is 

 such as to require that, at a certain stage of its growth, the stalk 

 should bend, and the flower should bow its head, that an opera- 

 tion may take place which is necessary in order that the herb 

 should produce seed after its kind; and that, after this fecunda- 

 tion, its vegetable health requires that it should lift its head again 

 and stand erect. Now, if the mass of the earth had been greater 

 or less, the force of gravity would have been different ; in that 

 case, the strength of fibre in the snow-drop, as it is, would have 

 been too much or too little ; the plant could not bow or raise ita 

 head at the right time, fecundation could not take place, and its 

 family would have become extinct with the first individual that 

 was planted, because its "seed" would not have been "in itself," 

 and therefore could not have reproduced itself, and its creation 

 would have been a failure. Now, if we see such a perfect adap- 

 tation, such exquisite adjustment in the case of one of the small- 

 est flowers of the field, how much more may we not expect " com- 

 pensation" in the atmosphere and the ocean, upon the right ad- 

 justment and due performance of which depends not only the 

 life of that plant, but the well-being of every individual that is 

 found in the entire vegetable and animal kingdoms of the world ? 

 When the east winds blow along the Atlantic coast for a little 

 while, they bring us air saturated with moisture from the Gulf 

 Stream, and we complain of the sultry, oppressive, heavy atmos- 

 phere ; the invalid grows worse, and the well man feels ill, be- 

 cause, when he takes this atmosphere into his lungs, it is already 

 so charged with moisture that it can not take up and carry off 

 that which encumbers his lungs, and which nature has caused his 

 blood to bring and leave there, that respiration may take up and 

 carry off. At other times the air is dry and hot ; he feels that it 

 is conveying off matter from the lungs too fast ; he realizes the 

 idea that it is consuming him, and he calls the sensation burning. 

 Therefore, in considering the general laws which govern the 

 physical agents of the universe, and regulate them in the due 



