2 OS THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



some check or regulator had already been provided for the one as 

 well as the other — checks which should keep the sea up to its 

 office, preventing it from growing, in the process of ages, either 

 larger or smaller, fresher or Salter. As we go down into the 

 depths of the sea, we find that we are just beginning to penetrate 

 the chambers of its hidden things, and to comprehend its wonders. 

 The heart of man was never rightly attuned to the music of the 

 spheres until he was permitted to stand with his eye at the tele- 

 scope, and then, for the first time, the song of the morning stars 

 burst upon him in all their glory. And so it is with the harmo- 

 nies of old Ocean when contemplated through the microscope ; 

 then every drop of water in the sea is discovered to be in tune 

 with the hosts of heaven, for each stands forth a peopled world. 



498. Catching, as we contemplate the hosts of heaven through 

 Tiie microscope and "^^^ tclcscopc and the moviug crcaturcs of the sea 

 the teieacope. through the microscopc, the spirit of Chalmers, and 



borrowing his fine imagery, let us draw a contrast between the glo- 

 ries of the heavens and the wonders of the insect world of earth and 

 sea, as they are presented through these instruments to the mind 

 of a devout philosopher: 'one leads him to see a world in every 

 atom, the other a system for every star. One shows him that this 

 vast globe, with its mighty nations and multitudinous inhabitants, 

 is but a grain of sand in the immensity of space ; the other, that 

 every particle of clay that lies buried in the depths of the sea has 

 been a living habitation, containing within it the workshops of a 

 busy population. One tells him of the insignificance of the world 

 we inhabit; the other redeems it from that insignificance by 

 showing in the leaves of the forest, in the flowers of the field, and 

 in every drop of water in the sea, worlds as numberless as the 

 sands on its shores, all teeming with life, and as radiant as the 

 firmament with glories. One suggests that, beyond and above all 

 that is visible to man, there are fields of creation which sweep 

 immeasurably along, and carry to the remotest regions of space 

 the impress of the Almighty hand ; the other reminds us that, 

 within and beneath all that minuteness which the eye of man has 

 been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles, and 

 that, could we draw aside the veil that hides it from our senses, 

 we should behold a theatre of as many worlds as astronomy has 

 unfolded — a universe within the compass of a point so small as to 



