82 PHYSICAL GEOaEAl'HY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOllOLOGY. 



north (§ 207) ; they stop, descend, and flow out as surface 

 currents (§ 210J, the one with which the imagination is tra- 

 velling, to the equatorial calm as the south-east trade-wind; 

 here (§ 212) it ascends, travelling thence to the calm belt of 

 Cancer as an upper current counter to the north-east trades. 

 Here (§ 210 and 209) it ceases to be an upper current, but, 

 descending (§ 210), travels on with the south-west passage-winds 

 towards the pole. 



215. Diagram of the ivinds, — Now the course we have imagined 

 an atom of air to take, as illustrated by the " diagram of the 

 winds " (Plate I.), is this : an ascent in a place of calms about 

 the north pole, as at V P ; an efflux thence as an upper current, 

 ABC, until it meets K S (also an upper current) over the calms 

 of Cancer. Here there is supposed to be a descent, as shown by 

 the arrows, C D, S T. This current, A B C D, from the pole, 

 now becomes the north-east trade-wind, D E, on the surface," 

 until it meets the south-east trades, Q, in the equatorial 

 calms, where it ascends as E F, and travels as F G with the 

 upper current to the calms of Capricorn, thence as H J Iv, 

 with the prevailing north-west surface current to the south 

 pole, thence up with the arrow P', and around with the 

 hands of a watch, and back, as indicated by the arrows along 

 LMNOQESTUV. 



216. As our hnoidedge of the laws of nature has increased, so have 

 cur readings of the Bible improved. — The Bible frequently makes 

 illusion to the laws of nature, their operation and effects. But 

 such allusions are often so wrapped in the folds of the peculiar 

 and graceful drapery with which its language is occasionally 

 clothed, that the meaning, though peeping out from its thin 

 covering all the while, yet lies in some sense concealed, until 

 the lights and revelations of science are thrown upon it ; then it 

 oursts out and strikes us with exquisite force and beauty. As 

 our knowledge of Nature and her laws has increased, so has our 

 understanding of many passages in the Bible been improved. 

 The Psalmist called the earth " the round world ;" yet for ages 

 it was the most damnable heresy for Christian men to say the 

 world is round ; and, finally, sailors circumnavigated the globe, 

 proved the Bible to be right, and saved Christian men of science 

 from the stake. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of 

 Pleiades ?" Astronomers of the present day, if they have not 

 answered this question, have thrown so much light upon it as to 



