THE SALTS OP THE SEA. 267 



have not made ih.e sea any fuller. All this solid matter has been 

 received into the interstices of sea water without swelling the 

 mass ; for chemists tell ns that water is not increased in volume 

 bv the salt it dissolves. Here we have therefore displayed before 

 ns an economy of space calculated to surprise even the learned 

 author himself of the " Plnrality of Worlds." 



496. The saltness of water retards evaporation. — There has been 

 another question raised which bears upon what has already been 

 said concerning the offices which, in the sublime system of terres- 

 trial arrangements, have been assigned to the salts of the sea. On 

 the 20th of January, 1855, Professor Chapman, of the University 

 College, Toronto, communicated to the Canadian Institute a paper 

 on the " Object of the salt condition of the sea," which, he main- 

 tains, is " mainly intended to regulate evaporation'' To establish 

 this hypothesis, he shows by a simple but carefully conducted set 

 of experiments that, the Salter the water, the slower the evapora- 

 tion from it ; and that the evaporation which takes place in 24 

 hours from water about as salt as the average of sea water is 0.54 

 per cent, less in quantity than from fresh water. " This sugges- 

 tion and these experiments give additional interest to our 

 investigations into the manifold and marvelloiis offices which, in 

 the economy of our planet, have been assigned by the Creator to 

 the salts of the sea. It is difficult to say what, in the Divine 

 an^angement, was the main object of making the sea salt and not 

 fresh. Whether it was to assist in the regulation of climates, or 

 in the circulation of the ocean, or in re-adapting the earth for new 

 conditions by transferring solid portions of its ciiist from one 

 pai-t to another, and giving employment to the corallines and 

 insects of the sea in collecting this solid matter into new forms, 

 and presenting it under different climates and conditions, or 

 whether the main object was, as the distinguished professor 

 suggests, to regulate evaporation, it is not necessary now or here 

 to discuss. I think we may regard all the objects of the salts of 

 the sea as main objects. But we see in the professor's experiments 

 the dawn of more new beauties, and the appearance of other 

 exquisite compensations, which, in studying the ' wonders of the 

 deep,' we have so often paused to contemplate and admire : — As 

 the trade- wind region feeds the air with the vapour of fresh water, 

 the process of evaporation from the sea is checked, for the watei- 

 which remains, being salter, parts with its vapour less readily ; 

 and thus, by the salts of the sea, floods may be prevented. But 



