THE CLOUD REGION, ETC. 269 



deptli saith, it is not in me ; and the sea saith, it is not with me. 

 It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for 

 the price thereof. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, 

 for the price of wisdom is above rubies. T\Tience, then, cometh 

 -svisdom, and where is the place of understanding ? Destruction 

 and Death say, we have heard the fame thereof ^ith om^ ears. 

 God miderstandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place 

 thereof ; for he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under 

 the whole heaven; to maJce the weight for the icinds ; and he 

 weigheth the waters by measm^e. When he made a decree for the 

 rain, and a way for the hghtning of the thmider, then did he see it 

 and declare it; he j)repared it, yea, and searched it out."* AVhen 

 the pimip-maker came to ask Galileo to explain how it was that 

 his pump would not lift water higher than thirty-two feet, the philo- 

 sopher thought, but was afraid to say, it was o^ving to " the weight 

 of the ^inds ;" and though the fact that the ah' has weight is here 

 so distinctly announced, philosophers never recognized the fact 

 imtil mthin comparatively a recent jjeriod, and then it was pro- 

 claimed by them as a great discovery. Nevertheless, the fact was 

 set forth as distinctly in the book of nature as it is in the book of 

 revelation ; for the infant, in availing itself of atmospherical pressure 

 to di'aw mdk from its mother's breast, unconsciously proclaimed it. 



517. The barometert stands lower under this cloud-ring than 

 The barometer nn- ou either sido of it (§ 362). After havmg crossed 

 tier the ciuu<i-ring. j|.^ ^q attentive navigator may perceive how this 

 belt of clouds, by screening the parallels over wliich he may have 

 found it to hang from the sun's rays, not only promotes the pre- 

 cipitation which takes place "within these parallels at certain periods, 

 but how, also, the rains are made to change the places upon which 

 they are to fall ; and how, by travelhng with the calm belt of the 

 equator up and down the earth, this cloud-ring shifts the surface 

 from which the heating rays of the sun are to be excluded ; and 

 how, by this operation, tone is given to the atmospherical cu'cida- 

 tion of the world, and vigour to its vegetation. 



518. Having travelled with the calm belt to the north or south, 

 Its motions. the cloud-riug leaves a clear sky about the equator ; 



the rays of the tonid sun then pour do^Mi upon the sohd crust of 

 the earth there, and raise its temperature to a scorching heat. The 



* Job, chap, xxviii. 



t Observations now show that the thermometer stands higliest under the cloud- 

 ring. Indeed, the indications are tliat it coincides with the thermal equator. 



