192 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



specimen, according to analj'sis, was of sea water, and it is not 

 necessary to call in the supposition of a brine spring to account 

 for this heavy specimen. Jf we admit the principle assumed by 

 Sir Charles Lyeil, that water from the great pools and basins of 

 the sea can never ascend to cross the ridges Avhich form these 

 pools and basins, then the harmonies of the sea are gone, and we 

 are forced to conclude they never existed. Every particle of 

 water that sinks below a submarine ridge is ipso facto, by his 

 reasoning, stricken from the channels of circulation, to become 

 thenceforward for ever motionless matter. The consequence 

 would be " cold obstruction " in the depths of the sea, and a 

 s^^stem of circulation between different seas of the waters only 

 that float above the shoalest reefs and barriers of each. If the 

 water in the depths of the sea were to be confined there — doomed 

 to everlasting repose, — then why was it made fluid, or why was 

 the sea made any deeper than just to give room for its surface 

 currents to skim along? If water once below the reefs and 

 shallows must remain below them, — why were the depths of the 

 ocean filled with fluid instead of solid matter ? Doubtless, when 

 the seas were measured and the mountains stood in the balance, 

 the solid and fluid matters of the earth were adjusted in exact 

 proportions to insure perfection in the terrestrial machinery. I 

 do not believe in the existence of any such imperfect mechanism, 

 or in any such failure of design as the imparting of useless pro- 

 perties to matter, such as fluidity to that which is doomed t-o be 

 stationary, would imply. To my mind, the proofs — the theoreti- 

 cal proofs, — the proofs derived exclusively from reason and 

 analogy — are as clear in favour of this under current from the 

 Mediterranean as they were in favour of the existence of 

 Leverrier's planet before it was seen through the telescope at 

 Berlin. Now suppose, as Sir Charles Lyell maintains, that none 

 of these vast quantities of salt which this surface current takes 

 into the Mediterranean find their way out again. It would not 

 be difficult to show, even to the satisfaction of that eminent 

 geologist, that this indraught conveys salt away from the Atlantic 

 faster than all the /res/i-water streams empty fresh supplies of 

 salt into the ocean. Now, besides this drain,- vast quantities of 

 salts are extracted from sea water for coral reefs, shell banks, 

 and marl beds ; and by such reasoning as this, which is perfectly 

 sound and good, we establish the existence of this under current, 

 or else we are forced to the very unphilosophical conclusion that 



