THE GEOLOGICAL AGENCY OF THE WINDS. 299 



south, with regard to land in the trade-wind region of the north, 

 should also be scantily supplied with rains. 



550. Terrestrial adaptations. — Having thus remarked upon these 

 dry coincidences, let us contemplate the beautiful harmony 

 displayed in the arrangement of the land and water, as we find 

 them along this conjectural " wind-road." (Plate VII.) Those 

 who admit design in terrestrial adaptations, or who have studied 

 the economy of cosmical arrangements, will not be loth to grant 

 that by design the atmosphere keeps in circulation a certain 

 amount of moisture ; that the water of which this moisture is 

 made is supplied by the aqueous surface of the earth, and that it 

 is to be returned to the seas again through rivers and the process 

 of precipitation ; for were it not so, there would be a permanent 

 increase or decrease of the quantity of water thus put and kept in 

 circulation by the winds, which would be followed by a cor- 

 responding change of hygrometrical conditions, which, in turn, 

 would draw after it permanent changes of climate ; and per- 

 manent changes of climate would involve the ultimate well-being 

 of myriads of organisms, both in the vegetable and animal king- 

 doms. The quantity of moisture that the atmosphere keeps in 

 circulation is, no doubt, just that quantity which is best suited 

 to the well-being,'and most adapted to the proper development of 

 the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; and that quantity is de- 

 pendent upon the arrangement and the proportions that we see 

 in nature between the land and the water — between mountain 

 and desert, river and sea. If the seas and evaporating surfaces 

 were changed, and removed from the places they occupy to other 

 places, the principal places of precipitation probably would also 

 be changed : whole families of plants would Avither and die for 

 want of cloud and sunshine, dry and wet, in proper proportions 

 and in due season : and, with the blight of plants, whole tribes 

 of animals would also perish. Under such a chance arrange- 

 ment, man would no longer be able to rely upon the early and 

 the latter rain, or to count with certainty upon the rains being 

 sent in due season for seed-time and harvest. And that the rain 

 will be sent in due season we are assured from on high ; and 

 when we recollect who it is that " sendeth " it, we feel the 

 conviction strong within us, that He who sendeth the rain has the 

 winds for his messengers ; and that they may do his bidding, the 

 land and the sea were arranged, both as to position and relative 

 proportions, where they are, and as they are. 



