138 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP THE SEA. AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



while, upon the sea, small fishing-boats loom up like large ves- 

 sels,* The seaman, drifting along the coast, and misled by the 

 increasing clearness and mirage, believes that he has been driven 

 Dj a current towards the land ; he casts the lead, and looks 

 anxiously out for the sea breeze, in order to escape from what he 

 believes to bo threatening danger. The planks burn under his 

 feet ; in vain he spreads the awning to shelter himself from the 

 broiling sun. Its rays are oppressive ; reijose does not refresh ; 

 motion is not agreeable. The inhabitants of the deep, awakened 

 by the clear light of day, prepare themselves for labour. Corals, 

 and thousands of Crustacea, await, perhaps impatiently, the coming 

 of the sea breeze, which shall cause evaporation to take place 

 more rapidly, and thus provide them with a bountiful store of 

 building material for their picturesque and artfully constructed 

 dwellings : these they know how to paint and to polish in the 

 depths of the sea more beautifully than can be accomplished by 

 any human art. Like them, also, the plants of the sea are de- 

 pendent upon the winds, upon the clouds, and upon the sun- 

 shine : for upon these depend the vapour and the rains which 

 feed the streams that bring nourishment for them into the sea.f 

 ^vYhen the sun reaches the zenith, and his stern eye, with burn- 

 ing glare, is turned more and more upon the Java Sea, the air 

 seems to fall into a magnetic sleep ; yet even as the magnetizer 

 exercises his will upon his subject, and the latter, with uncertain 

 and changeable gestures, gradually puts himself in motion, and 

 sleeping obeys that will, so also we see the slow efforts of the 

 sea breeze to repress the vertical movements of the air, and to 

 obey the will which calls it to the land. This vertical move- 

 ment appears to be not easily overcome by the horizontal which 

 we call wind. Yonder, far out upon the sea, arises and disap- 

 pears alternately a darker tint upon the otherwise shining sea- 

 carpet ; finally that tint remains and approaches ; that is the 

 long-wished-for sea breeze : and yet it is sometimes one, yes, 

 even two hours before the darker tint is permanent, before the 



* Especially in the rainy season the land looms very greatly ; then we see 

 mountains which are from 5000 to COOO feet high at a distance of 80 or 100 

 English miles. 



•f The archipelago of coral islands on the north side of the Sti-ai ts of Sunda 

 is remarkable. Before the salt water flowed from the Straits it was deprived of 

 the solid matter of which the Thousoiid Islands arc constructed. A similar 

 group of islands is found between the Straits of Macassar and Babe. — Jansen. 



