2G4 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



most abundantly even now tlie moving creature that hatli life, 

 and doing it in obedience to that command. 



493. Ditto, calcareous in the Pacific, silicious in the Atlantic. — In 

 the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the calcareous matter seems to 

 be in excess, for the microscopic shells there, as well as the conch 

 and the coral, are built mostly of lime. In contemplating this 

 round of compensations, the question may be asked, Where is the 

 agent that regulates the supply of solid materials for the insects 

 of the sea to build their edifices of? Answer : The rivers. 

 They bring down, and pour into the sea continually, the pabu- 

 lum which those organisms require. This amount again depends 

 upon the quantity and power of the rains to wash out from the 

 solid rock ; and the rains depend upon the amount of vapour that 

 the sea delivers to the winds, which, as Chapman's observations 

 show, depends directl}^ upon the salts of the sea. 



494. Tlie records of the sea and of revelation agree. — So far the 

 two records agree, and the evidence is clear that the sea was salt 

 when it received its command. Do they afford any testimony as 

 to its condition previously ? Let us examine : — On the second 

 day of creation the waters were gathered together unto one place, 

 and the dr}^ land appeared. Before that period, therefore, there 

 were no rivers, and consequently no washings of brine by mists, 

 nor dew, nor rains for the valleys among the hills. The water 

 covered the earth. This is the account of revelation ; and the 

 account which Nature has written, in her own peculiar charac- 

 ters, on the mountain and in the jolain, on the rock and in the sea, 

 as to the early condition of our j)lanet, indicates the same. The 

 inscriptions on the geological column tell that there was a period 

 when the solid parts of the earth's crust which now stand high 

 in the air were covered by water. The geological evidence that it 

 Avas so, with perhaps the exception of a solitaiy mountain 2)eak 

 here and there, is conclusive ; and when we come to examine the 

 fossil remains that are buried on the mountains and scattered over 

 the plains, we have as much reason to say that the sea was salt 

 v/hen it covered or nearly covered the earth, as the naturalist, when 

 he sees a skull or bone whitening on the wayside, has to say that 

 it was once covered with flesh. Therefore we have reason for the 

 conjecture that the sea was salt " in the beginning," when " the 

 waters under heaven were gathered together under one place," 

 and the dry land first appeared ; for, go back as far as we may in 

 the dim records which young Nature has left inscribed upon the 



