132 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AKD ITS METEOROLOGY. 



do sweet phantoms hover about the land breeze as it slumbers upon 

 the sea. The shore seems to approach and to display all its 

 charms to the mariner in the ofl&ng. All objects become distinct 

 and more clearly delineated,* while, upon the sea, small fishing- 

 boats loom up like large vessels. The seaman, drifting along the 

 coast, and misled by the increasing clearness and mirage, believes 

 that he has been driven by a current towards the land ; he casts the 

 lead, and looks anxiously out for the sea breeze, in order to escape 

 from what he believes to be threatening danger.f The planks 

 burn mider his feet ; in vain he spreads the a^vning to shelter him- 

 self from the broiling sun. Its rays are oppressive ; repose does 

 not refresh ; motion is not agreeable. The inhabitants of the deep, 

 awakened by the clear hght of day, prepare themselves for labour. 

 Corals, and thousands of Crustacea, await, perhaps impatiently, the 

 coming of the sea breeze, which shall cause evaporation to take 

 place more rapidly, and thus provide them vnth. a bountiful store of 

 building material for their pictm^esque and artfully constructed 

 dwellings : these they know how to paint and to polish in the 

 depths of the sea more beautifully than can be accomplished by 

 any human art. Like them, also, the plants of the sea are depend- 

 ent upon the winds, upon the clouds, and upon the sunshine ; for 

 upon these depend the vapour and the rains which feed the streams 

 that bring nourishment for them into the sea 4 Wlien the sun 

 reaches the zenith, and his stern eye, with bmiiing glare, is 

 tm'ned more and more upon the Java Sea, the air seems to fall into 

 a magnetic sleep ; yet even as the magnetizer exercises his will 

 upon his subject, and the latter, with micertain and changeable 

 gestures, gradually puts himself in motion, and sleeping obeys 

 that will, so also we see the slow efforts of the sea breeze to repress 

 the vertical movements of the air, and to obey the will which 

 calls it to the land. This vertical movement appears to be not 

 easily overcome by the horizontal which we call wind. Yonder, 

 far out upon the sea, arises and disappears alternately a darker 

 tint upon the otherwise shining sea-carpet ; finally that tint 



* The transparency of the atmosphere is so great that we can sometimes 

 discover Venus in the sky in the middle of the day. — Jaksen. 



t Especially in the rainy season the land looms very greatly ; then we see 

 mountains which are from 5000 to 6000 feet high at a distance of 80 or 100 

 English miles. 



X The archipelngo of coral islands on the north side of the Straits of Sunda is 

 remarkable. 33efore the salt water flowed from the Straits it was deprived of the 

 solid matter of which the Thousand Islands are constructed. A similar group of 

 islands is found between the Straits of Macassar and Balie. — Jansex. 



