310 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SKi, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



Why have not its currents cut through the sohd crust in which 

 its hillows are rocked, and ripped out from the bowels of the earth 

 the masses of incandescent, molten matter which geologists tell us 

 lie pent up and boiling there ? 



598. If the currents of the sea, with this four-mile velocity at 

 the sui'face, and this himdreds of tons pressure on the bottom, 

 AVhy they cannot wcrc permitted to chafe against its bed, the Atlantic, 

 chaie it. instead of being tvv^o miles deep and 3000 miles broad, 



would, we may imagine, have been long ago cut down into a narrow 

 channel that might have been as the same ocean turned up on edge, 

 and measuring two miles broad and 3000 deep. But had it been 

 so cut, the proportion of land and water surface would have been 

 destroyed, and the vvinds, for lack of area to play upon, could not 

 have sucked up from the sea vapom^s for the rams, and the face of 

 the earth would have become as a desert without water. Now 

 there is a reason why such changes shoidd not take place, why the 

 currents shoidd not uproot nor score the deep bed of the ocean, 

 why they should not thi'ow out of adjustment any physical arrange- 

 ment whatever : because, in the presence of everlasting wisdom, a 

 compass was set upon the face of the deep ; because ^'fe ivaters were 

 measured in the holloio of the Almighty hand ; because hars and 

 doors tvere set to stay its proud waves ; and because, ivhen He 

 gave to the sea His decree that its ivaters should not pass His com- 

 mand, He laid the foimdaiions of the ivorld so fast that they should 

 not he removed for ever. 



599. By bringing up specimens from the depth of the ocean, 

 ■^vhat it consists of. and studyiug them through the microscope, it has 



been ascertained that the bed of the ocean is lined Vvdth the micro- 

 scopic remams of its own dead, with marine feculences which lie on 

 the bottom as lightly as gossamer. How frail yet how strong, how 

 light yet how fii'm are the foundations of the sea ! Its waves 

 cannot fret them, its currents cannot wear them, for the bed of the 

 deep sea is protected from abrasion by a cushion of still and heavy 

 water. There it lies — that beautiful arrangement — spread out over 

 the bottom of the deep, and covering its foimdations as with a gar- 

 ment, so that they may not be worn. If the cmTents chafe upon 

 it now here, now there, as in shallow seas they sometimes do, this 

 protectmg cushion is self-adjusting ; and the moment the un- 

 wonted pressure is removed the hquid cushion is restored, and there 

 is again compensation. 



600. The discovery of this arrangement in the oceanic ma- 



