THE SALTS 07 THE SEA. 265 



geological column of her early processes, and there we find the 

 fossil shell and the remains of marine organisms to inform us 

 that when the foundations of our mountains Avere laid with 

 o-ranite, and immediately succeeding that remote period when 

 the primary formations were completed, the sea was, as it is now, 

 salt ; for had it not been salt, whence could those creeping tilings 

 which fashioned the sea-shells that cover the tops of the Andes, or 

 those madrepores that strew the earth with solid matter that has 

 been secreted from briny waters, or those infusorial deposits which 

 astound the geologist with their magnitude and extent, or those 

 fossil remains of the sea which have astonished, puzzled, and be- 

 wildered man in all ages — whence, had not the sea been salt 

 when its metes and bounds were set, could these creatures have 

 obtained solid matter for their edifices and structures? Much 

 of that part of the earth's crust which man stirs up in cultivation, 

 and which yields him bread, has been made fruitful by these 

 ^' salts," which all manner of marine insects, aqueous organisms, 

 and sea-shells have secreted from the ocean. Much of this 

 portion of our planet has been filtered through the sea, and its 

 insects and creeping things are doing now precisely what they 

 were set about when the dry land appeared, namely, preserving 

 the purity of the ocean, and regulating it in the due performance 

 of its great offices. As fast as the rains dissolve the salts of the 

 earth, and send them dowai through the rivers to the sea, these 

 faithful and everlasting agents of the Creator elaborate them into 

 pearls, shells, corals, and precious things; and so, while they 

 are preserving the sea, they are also embellishing the land by 

 imparting new adaptations to its soil, fresh beauty and variety 

 to its landscapes. Whence came the salts of the sea oiiginally 

 is a question which perhaps never will be settled satisfactorily 

 to every philosophic mind, but it is sufficient for the Christian 

 philosopher to recollect that the salts of the sea, like its waters 

 and the granite of the hills, are composed of substances which, 

 when reduced to their simple state, are found for the most part 

 to be mere gaseous or volatile matter of some kind or other. 

 Thus we say that granite is generally composed of feldspar, 

 mica, and quartz, yet these three minerals are made of substances 

 more or less volatile in combination with oxygen gas. Iron, of 

 %vhich there is merely a trace, is the onty ingredient which, in its 

 uncombined and simple state, is not gaseous or volatile. Now, 

 was the feldspar of the granite originally formed in one heap, 



