§492. THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 261 



down is compensated by the processes of evaporation and secretion 

 in taking out. If the sea derived its salts originally from the riv- 

 ers, the geological records of the past would show that river beds 

 were scored out in the crust of our planet before the sea had de- 

 posited any of its fossil shells and infusorial remains upon it. If, 

 therefore, we admit the Darwin theory, we must also admit that 

 there was a period when the sea was without salt, and consequent- 

 ly without shells or animals either of the silicious or calcareous 

 kind. If ever there were such a time, it must have been when 

 the rivers were collecting and pouring in the salts which now 

 make the brine of the ocean. But while the palaBontological rec- 

 ords of the earth, on one hand, afford no evidence of any such 

 fresh-water period, the Mosaic account is far from being negative 

 with its testimony on the other. According to it, we infer that 

 the sea was salt as earl}^, at least, as the fifth day, for it was on 

 that day of creation that the waters were commanded to "bring 

 forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life." It is in 

 obedience to that command that the sea now teems with organ- 

 isms ; and it is marvelous how abundantly the obedient waters do 

 bring forth, and how wonderful for variety as well as multitude 

 their progeny is. All who pause to look are astonished to see 

 how the prolific ocean teems and swarms with life. The moving 

 creatures in the sea constitute in their myriads of multitudes one 

 of the " wonders of the deep." 



492. It is the custom of Captain Foster, of the American ship 

 Insects of the sea— Grarrick, who is one of my most patient of ob- 

 their abundance. scrvcrs, to amuse himsclf by making drawings in 

 his abstract log of the curious animalculae which, with the micro- 

 scope, he finds in the surface water alongside ; and though he has 

 been following the sea for many years, he never fails to express 

 his wonder and amazement at tlie immense numbers of living 

 creatures that the microscope reveals to him in sea water. Hith- 

 erto his examinations related only to the surface waters, but in 

 the log now before me he went into the depths, and he was more 

 amazed than ever to see how abundantly the waters even there 

 bring forth. ^^ January 28(h, 1855. In examining animalcule in 

 sea water, I have," says he, " heretofore used surface water. This 

 afternoon, after pumping for some time from the stern pump sev- 

 en feet below the surface, I examined the water, and was surprised 



