§ 465. THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 237 



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to the agency of the salts or solid matter of the sea in imparting 

 dynamical force to the waters of the ocean, and to suggest that 

 one of the purposes which, in the grand design, it was probably 

 intended to accomplish by having the sea salt, and not fresh, was 

 to impart to its waters the forces and powers necessary to make 

 their circulation complete. In the first place, we rely mainly upon 

 hypothesis or conjecture for the assertion that there is a set of 

 currents in the sea by which its waters are conveyed from place 

 to place with regularity, certainty, and order. But this conjecture 

 appears to be founded on reason, and we believe it to be true ; 

 for if we take a sample of water which shall fairly represent, in 

 the proportion of its constituents, the average water of the Pacific 

 Ocean, and analyze it, and if we do the same by a similar sample 

 from the Atlantic, we shall find the analysis of the one to resem- 

 ble that of the other as closely as though the two samples had 

 been taken from the same bottle after having been well shaken. 

 How, then, shall we account for this, unless upon the supposition 

 that sea water from one part of the world is, in the process of 

 time, brought in contact and mixed up with sea water from all 

 other parts of the world ? Agents, therefore, it would seem, are 

 at work, which shake up the waters of the sea as though they 

 were in a bottle, and which, in the course of time, mingle those 

 that are in one part of the ocean with those that are in another as 

 thoroughly and completely as it is possible for a man to do in a 

 vessel of his own construction. This fact as to uniformity of com- 

 ponents appears to call for the hypothesis that sea water which to- 

 day is in one part of the ocean, will, in the process of time, be found 

 in another part the most remote. It must, therefore, be carried 

 about by currents ; and as these currents have their offices to per- 

 form in the terrestrial economy, they probably do not flow by 

 chance, but in obedience to physical laws ; they no doubt, there- 

 fore, assist to maintain the order and preserve the harmony which 

 characterize every department of Grod's handy- work, and as such 

 we treat them. 



465. This h3rpothesis about currents is based upon our faith in 

 Arguments afforded the physical adaptations with which the sea is in- 

 vor of. vested. Take, for example, the coral islands, reefs, 



beds, and atolls with which the Pacific Ocean is studded and gar- 

 nished. They were built up of materials which a certain kind 



