254 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



the process of ages, haye become covered with the flinty shells of 

 these httle creatm-es. And then recollect the command which v/as 

 given to the waters of the sea on the fifth day, and we may form 

 some idea of how literally they have obeyed this order, bringing 

 forth most abimdantly even now the moving creature that hath life, 

 and doing it in obedience to that command. 



493. In the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the calcareous matter 

 Ditto, calcareous in scoms to bo iu exccss, for the microscopic shells 



the Pacific, silicious ,, n ji i n ji i ^ -t 



in the Atlantic. there, as Well as the conch and the coral, are built 

 mostly of lime. In contemplating this round of compensations, 

 the question may be asked, Where is the agent that regulates the 

 supply of solid materials for the insects of the sea to build their 

 edifices of ? Answer: The rivers. They bring down, and pour into 

 the sea continually, the pabulum which those organisms require. 

 This amount again depends upon the quantity and power of the 

 rains to wash out from the solid rock ; and the rains depend upon 

 the amount of vapour that the sea delivers to the winds, which, as 

 Chapman's observations show, depends directly upon the salts of 

 the sea. 



494. So far the two records agree, and the evidence is clear 

 The records of the that the sca was Salt whou it received its command. 



sea and of revelation -rxii re t i !• i -i -\- ,• 



agiee. Do they anord any testimony as to its condition pre- 



viously ? Let us examine : — On the second day of creation the waters 

 were gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appeared. 

 Before that period, therefore, there were no rivers, and consequently 

 no washings of brine by mists, nor dew, nor rains for the valleys 

 among the hiUs. The water covered the earth. This is the 

 account of revelation ; and the account which Nature has written, 

 in her own peculiar characters, on the mountain and in the plain, 

 on the rock and in the sea, as to the early condition of our planet, 

 indicates the same. The inscriptions on the geological column tell 

 that there was a period when the solid parts of the earth's crust 

 which now stand liigh in the air were covered by water. The 

 geological evidence that it was so, with perhaps the exception of a 

 solitary mountain peak here and there, is conclusive ; and when we 

 come to examine the fossil remains that are bmied on the mountains 

 and scattered over the plains, we have as much reason to say that 

 the sea was salt when it covered or nearly covered the earth, as the 

 naturahst, when he sees a skull or bone whitening on the wayside, 

 has to say that it was once covered with flesh. Therefore we have 

 reason for the conjecture that the sea was salt " in the beginning," 



