132 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



carry off that which encumbers his lungs, and which nature has 

 caused his blood to bring and leave there, that respiration may 

 take up and carry off. At other times the air is dry and hot ; he 

 feels that it is conveying off matter from tlie lungs too fast ; he 

 realizes the idea that it is consuming him, and he calls the 

 sensation burning. Therefore, in considering the general laws 

 which govern the physical agents of the universe, and which 

 regulate them in the due performance of their offices, I have felt 

 myself constrained to set out with the assumption that, if the 

 atmosphere had had a greater or less capacity for moisture, or if 

 the proportion of land and water had been different — if the 

 earth, air, and water had not been in exact counterpoise — the 

 whole arrangement of the animal and vegetable kingdoms would 

 have varied from their present state. But God, for reasons 

 which man may never know, chose to make those kingdoms 

 what they are ; for this purpose it was necessary, in his judg- 

 ment, to establish the proportions between the land and water, 

 and the desert, just as they are, and to make the cajmcity of the 

 air to circulate heat and moisture just what it is, and to have it 

 to do all its work in obedience to law and in subservience to 

 order. If it were not so, why was power given to the winds to 

 lift up and transport moisture, and to feed the plants mth 

 nourishment? or why was the property given to the gea by 

 which its waters may become first vapour, and then fruitful 

 showers or gentle dews? If the proportions and properties 

 of land, sea, and air were not adjusted according to the reci- 

 procal capacities of all to perfonn the functions required of each, 

 why should we be told that He *' measured the waters in the 

 hollow of his hand, and comjorehended the dust in a measure, 

 and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ?" 

 Why did he span the heavens but that he might mete out the 

 atmosphere in exact proportion to all the rest, and impart to it 

 those properties and powers which it was necessary for it to 

 have, in order that it might perform all those offices and duties 

 for which he designed it ? Harmonious in their action, the air 

 and sea are obedient to law and subject to order in all their 

 movements ; when we consult them in the performance of their 

 manifold and marvellous offices, they teach us lessons concern- 

 ing the wonders of the deep, the mysteries of the sky, the great- 

 ness, and the wisdom, and goodness of the Creator, which make 

 us wiser and better men. The investigations into the broad- 



