THE GEOLOGICAL AGENCY OP THE WINDS. 301 



gives tliem as much as they can take, and receives notliing back 

 iu return but a little dew (§ 376) ; the Persian Gulf also gives 

 more than it receives. What becomes of the rest ? Doubtless it 

 is given to the winds, that they may bear it off to distant regions, 

 and make lands fruitful, that but for these sources of supphr 

 would be almost rainless, if not entirely arid, waste, and barren. 

 These seas and arms of the ocean now present themselves to the 

 mind as counterpoises in the great hygrometrical machinery of 

 our planet. — As sheets of water placed where they are to balance 

 the land in the trade-wind region of South America and South 

 Africa, they now present themselves. When the foundations of 

 the earth were laid, the Great Architect " measured the waters 

 in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, 

 and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, "and 

 weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ;" 

 and hence we know that they are arranged both according to 

 proportion and to place. Here, then, we see harmony in the 

 winds, design in the mountains, order in the sea, arrangement for 

 the dust, and form for the desert. Here are signs of beauty and 

 works of grandeur ; and we may now fancy that, in this exquisite 

 system of adaptations and compensations, we can almost behold, 

 in the Eed and Mediterranean Seas, the very waters that were 

 held in the hollow of the Almighty hand when He weighed the 

 Andes and balanced the hills of Africa in the comprehensive 

 scales. In that great inland basin of Asia which holds the 

 Caspian Sea, and embraces an area of one million and a half of 

 geographical square miles, w^e see the water-surface so exquisitely 

 adjusted, that it is just sufficient, and no more, to return to the 

 atmosphere as vapour exactly as much moisture as the atmosphere 

 lends in rain to the rivers of that basin — a beautiful illustration of 

 the fact that the span of the heavens w^as meted out according to 

 the measure of the waters. Thus we are entitled to regard 

 (§ 542) the Mediterranean, the Eed Sea, and Persian Gulf as 

 relays, distributed along the route of these thirsty winds from 

 the continents of the other hemisphere, to supply them wdth 

 vapours, or to restore to them that which they have left behind 

 to feed the sources of the Amazon, the Niger, and the Congo. 



553. Hypothesis supported hy facts. — The hypothesis that the 

 winds from South Africa and America do take the course throngh 

 Europe and Asia which I have marked out for them (Plate VII.), 

 is supported by so man}" coincidences, to say the least, that we 



