238 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



of insect quarried from the sea water. The currents of the sea 

 ministered to this little insect — they were its liod-carriers. When 

 fresh supplies of solid matter were wanted for the coral rock upon 

 which the foundations of the Polynesian Islands were laid, these 

 hod carriers brought them in unfailing streams of sea water, load- 

 ed with food and building materials for the coralline. The obedi- 

 ent currents, therefore, must thread the widest and the deepest seas, 

 for they never fail to come at the right time, nor refuse to go 

 after they have ministered to the hungry creature. Unless the 

 currents of the sea were employed to carry off from this insect 

 the waters that have been emptied by it of their lime, and to bring 

 to it others charged with more, it is evident the little creature 

 would have perished for want of food long before its task was 

 half completed. But for currents, it would have been impaled in 

 a nook of the very drop of water in which it was brought forth ; 

 for it would have soon secreted the lime contained in this drop, 

 and then, without the ministering aid of currents to bring it more, 

 it would have perished for the want of food for itself and materi- 

 als for its edifice ; and thus, but for the benign currents which 

 took this exhausted water away, tliere we perceive this emptied 

 drop would have remained, not only as the grave of the little ar- 

 chitect, but as a monument in attestation of the shocking mon- 

 strosity that there had been a failure in the sublime system of ter- 

 restrial adaptations — that the sea had not been adapted by its 

 Creator to the well-being of all its inhabitants. Now we do know 

 that its adaptations are suited to all the wants of every one of its 

 inhabitants — to the wants of the coral insect as well as to those 

 of the whale. Thus our simple hypothesis acquires the majesty 

 of truth, for we are now prepared boldly to assert %ue know that 

 the sea has its system of circulation, because it transports mate- 

 rials for the coral rock from one part of the world to another ; 

 because its currents receive them from the rivers, and hand them 

 over to the little mason for the structure of the most stupendous 

 works of solid masonry that man has ever seen — the coral islands 

 of the sea. Thus, and, moreover, by a process of reasoning which 

 is perfectly philosophical, we are irresistibly led to conjecture 

 that there are regular and certain, if not appointed channels 

 through which the water travels from one part of the ocean to 

 another, and that those channels belong to an arrangement which 



