184 PHYSICAL CtEOGKAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS jyiETEOPvOLOGY. 



scarcely to be ^perceptible, wbile it may dasli over the bar or down 

 the rapids with mill-tail velocity. Were the brine not drawn out 

 again from the hollow places in the sea, it would be easy to prove 

 that this indraught into the Mediterranean has taken, even duiing 

 the period assigned by Sir Charles to the formation of the Delta 

 of the Mississippi — one of the newest formations — salt enough to 

 fill up . the whole basin of the Mediterranean mtli solid matter. 

 Admiral Smyth brought up bottom with his briny sample of deep 

 sea water (six hmidi'ed and seventy fathoms), but no salt crystals. 



389. The gallant adjniral — appearing to mthhold his assent 

 Views of Admiral both fL'om Dr. Wollastou iu liis conclusions as to 

 Lyeii-'^" >u . ^|_^.^ under current, and from the geologist in his 

 inferences as to the effect of the barrier in the Straits — suggests 

 the probability that, in sounding for the heavy specimen of sea 

 water, he struck a brine spring. But the specimen, according to 

 analysis, was of sea water, and it is not necessary to call in the 

 suj^position of a brine spring to account for this hea-vy specimen. 

 If we admit the principle assumed by Sir Charles Lyell, that water 

 from the great pools and basins of the sea can never ascend to 

 cross the ridges which form these pools and basins, then the har- 

 monies of the sea are gone, and we are forced to conclude they 

 never existed. Every particle of water that sinks below a sub- 

 marine ridge is, i2:>so facto, by his reasoning, stricken fi*om the 

 channels of circulation, to become thenceforward for ever motion- 

 less matter. The consequence would be '' cold obstruction " in 

 the depths of the sea, and a system of circulation between different 

 seas of the waters only that float above the shoalest reefs and 

 barriers of each. If the water in the depths of the sea w^ere to be 

 confined there — doomed to everlasting repose, — then why was it 

 made fluid, or why was the sea made any deeper than just to give 

 room for its surface cmTcnts to skim along ? If water once below 

 the reefs and shallows must remain below them, — why were the 

 depths of the ocean filled -with fluid instead of solid matter? 

 Doubtless, when the seas were measm'ed and the momitains stood 

 in the balance, the solid and fluid matters of the earth were adjusted 

 in exact proportions to insure perfection in the terrestrial machiner^^ 

 I do not believe in the existence of any such imperfect mechanism, 

 or in any such faihne of design as the imparting of useless pro- 

 perties to matter, such as fluidity to that which is doomed to be 

 stationary, would imply. To my mind, the proofs — the theoretical 

 proofs, — the proofs derived exclusively from reason and analog}^ — 



