208 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



come still more interesting. It is to be hoped, therefore, that my 

 fellow-laborers at sea will not slight the specific gravity column 

 of the man-of-war abstract log." — Mauey's Sailing Directions^ 

 7th ed., p. 857. 



580. Thus we behold sea-shells and animalcul^e in a new light. 

 May we not now cease to regard them as beings which have little 

 or nothing to do in maintaining the harmonies of creation ? On 

 the contrary, do we not see in them the principles of the most ad- 

 mirable compensation in the system of oceanic circulation ? We 

 may even regard them as regulators, to some extent, of climates 

 in parts of the earth far removed from their presence. There is 

 something suggestive, both of the grand and the beautiful, in the 

 idea that, while the insects of the sea are building up their coral 

 islands in the perpetual summer of the tropics, they are also en- 

 gaged in dispensing warmth to distant parts of the earth, and in 

 mitigating the severe cold of the Polar winter. 



581. Surely an hypothesis which, being followed out, suggests 

 so much design, such perfect order and arrangement, and so many 

 beauties for contemplation and admiration as does this, which, for 

 the want of a better, I have ventured to offer with regard to the 

 solid matter of the sea water, its salts and its shells — surely such 

 an hypothesis, though it be not based entirely on the results of 

 actual observation, can not be regarded as wholly vain or as alto- 

 gether profitless. 



