290 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AlW ITS METEOKOLOGY. 



and hence we know that they are arranged both according to pro- 

 portion and to place. Here, then, we see harmony in the winds, 

 design in the monntains, order in the sea, arrangement for the dust, 

 and form for the desert. Here are signs of beauty and works of 

 grandem- ; and we may now fancy that, in this exquisite system of 

 adai^tations and compensations, we can almost behold, in the Eed 

 and Mediterranean Seas, the very waters that were held m the 

 hollow of the Almighty hand when He weighed the Andes and 

 balanced the hills of Africa in the comprehensive scales. In that 

 great inland basin of Asia which holds the Caspian Sea, and embraces 

 an area of one million and a half of geographical square miles, we 

 see the water-sm-face so exquisitely adjusted, that it is just 

 sufficient, and no more, to return to the atmosphere as vapour 

 exactly as much moisture as the atmosphere lends in rain to the 

 rivers of that basin — a beautiful illustration of the fact that the span 

 of the heavens was meted out according to the measure of the waters. 

 Thus we are entitled to regard (§ 542) the Mediterranean, the Eed 

 Sea, and Persian Gulf as relays, distributed along the route of these 

 thirsty winds from the continents of the other hemisphere, to supply 

 them ^ith vapours, or to restore to them that which they have left 

 behind to feed the sources of the Amazon, the Niger, and the Congo. 

 553. The hypothesis that the winds from South Africa and 

 Hypothesis sup- America do take the course through Europe and 

 ported by facts. ^g^g^ which I havo marked out for them (Plate 

 YII.), is supported by so many coincidences, to say the east, that 

 we are entitled to regard it as probably correct, until a train of 

 coincidences at least as striking can be adduced to show that such 

 is not the case. Ketm-ning once more to a consideration of the 

 geological agency of the winds in accoimting for the depression 

 of the Dead Sea, we now see the fact palpably brought out before 

 us, that if the Straits of Gibraltar were to be barred up, so that no 

 water could pass through them, we should have a great depression 

 of water-level in the Mediterranean. Three times as much water 

 (§ 547) is evaporated from that sea as is returned to it through 

 the rivers. A portion of water evaporated from it is probably 

 rained down and retm^ned to it through the rivers ; but, suppos- 

 ing it to be barred up : as the demand upon it for vapour would 

 exceed the supply by rains and rivers, it would commence to dry 

 up ; as it sinks down, the area exposed for evaporation would 

 decrease, and the supplies to the rivers would diminish, until finally 

 there v/ould be estabhshed between the evaporation and precipita- 



