72 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS IVIETEOROLOGY. 



evaporation, and for those springs in the ocean which supply the 

 reservoirs among the mountains Avith water to feed the rivers ; and, 

 in order to conduct this search j)roperl3^, he must consult the winds, 

 and make himself acquainted with their "circuits." Hence, in a 

 work on the Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology, 

 we treat also of the Atmosphere. 



CHAPTER lY. 



200-268. THE ATMOSPHEEE. 



200. There is no employment more ennobling to man and hi» 

 Likened to a ma- intellect than to tracc the evidences of design and 

 *=^i^«' purpose, which are visible in many parts of the 



creation. Hence, to the right-minded mariner, and to him who 

 studies the physical relations of earth, sea, and air, the atmosphere 

 is something more than a shoreless ocean, at the bottom of which 

 he creeps along. It is an envelope or covering for the distribution 

 of light and heat over the smiace of the earth ; it is a sewer into 

 which, mth every breath we draw, we cast vast quantities of dead 

 animal matter ; it is a laboratory for pm-ification, in which that 

 matter is recompounded, and "wi'ought again into wholesome and 

 healthful shapes ; it is a machine for pumping up all the rivers 

 from the sea, and for conveying the water (§ 191) from the ocean 

 to their som'ces in the mountains ; it is an inexhaustible magazine, 

 marvellously stored. Upon the proper working of this machine 

 depends the well-being of every plant and animal that inhabits the 

 earth. How interesting, then, ought not the study of it to be ! 

 An examination of the uses which plants and animals make of the 

 air is sufficient to satisfy any reasoning mind in the conviction that 

 when they were created, the necessity of this adaptation was taken 

 into account. The connection between any two parts of an artificial 

 machine that work into each other, does not render design in its 

 construction more patent than is the fact that the great atmo- 

 spherical machine of our planet was constructed by an Architect 

 who designed it for certain purposes ; therefore the management 

 of it, its movements, and the performance of its offices, cannot be 

 left to chance. They are, we may rely upon it, guided by laws 

 that make all parts, functions, and movements of this machinery 



