212 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



they cover the earth as with a mantle; they prevent radiation 

 from its crust, and keep it warm. At another time, they interpose 

 between it and the smi ; they screen it from his scorching rays, 

 and protect the tender plants from his heat, the land from the 

 drouo'lit ; or, like a garment, they overshadow the sea, defending its 

 waters from the intense forces of evaporation. Having performed 

 these offices for one place, they are evaporated and given up to the 

 sunbeam and the winds again, to be borne on their wings away to 

 other places which stand in need of like offices. 



588. Familiar with clouds and sunshine, the storm and the 

 calm, and all the phenomena which find expression in the physi- 

 cal geography of the sea, the right-minded mariner, as he contem- 

 plates "the cloud without rain," ceases to regard it as an empty 

 thing ; he perceives that it performs many important offices ; he 

 regards it as a great moderator of heat and cold — as a "compen- 

 sation" in the atmospherical mechanism which makes the perform- 

 ance of the grand machine perfect. 



589. Marvelous are the offices and wonderful is the constitu- 

 tion of the atmosphere. Indeed, I know of no subject more fit for 

 profitable thought on the part of the truth-loving, knowledge- 

 seeking student, be he seaman or landsman, than that afforded by 

 the atmosphere and its offices. Of all parts of the physical ma- 

 chinery, of all the contrivances in the mechanism of the universe, 

 the atmosphere, with its offices and its adaptations, appears to me 

 to be the most wonderful, sublime, and beautiful. In its construc- 

 tion, the perfection of knowledge is involved. The perfect man of 

 Uz, in a moment of inspiration, thus bursts forth in laudation of 

 this part of God's handiwork, demanding of his comforters: "But 

 where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of under- 

 standing ? The depth saith, it is not in me ; and the sea saith, it 

 is not with me. It can not be gotten for gold, neither shall silver 

 be weighed for the price thereof. No mention shall be made of 

 coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. 



"Whence, then, cometh wisdom, and where is the place of un> 

 derstanding? Destruction and Death say, we have heard the fame 

 thereof with our ears. 



"God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place 



