68 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 



parts, as some philosophers have demonstrated,* 

 what an immense assemblage of watery parti 

 cles must be contained in the unfathomable ca 

 verns of the ocean ! Here the powers of cal 

 culation are completely set at defiance ; and an 

 image of infinity, immensity, and endless dura 

 tion is presented to the mind. This mighty ex 

 panse of waters is the grand reservoir of nature, 

 and the source of evaporation, which enriches 

 the earth with fertility and verdure. Every 

 cloud which floats in the atmosphere, and every 

 fountain, and rivulet, and flowing stream, are 

 indebted to this inexhaustible source for those 

 watery treasures which they distribute through 

 every region of the land. In fine, whether we 

 consider the ocean as rearing its tremendous 

 billows in the midst of the tempest, or as stretch 

 ed out into a smooth expanse whether we con 

 sider its immeasurable extent, its mighty move 

 ments, or the innumerable beings which glide 

 through its rolling waves we cannot but be 

 struck with astonishment at the grandeur of that 

 Omnipotent Being who holds its waters &quot; in 

 the hollow of his hand,&quot; and who has said to its 

 foaming surges, &quot;Hitherto shall thou come, 

 and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves 

 be stayed.&quot; 



RIVERS. The next feature of the earth s 

 surface which may be noticed, is, the rivers 

 with which it is indented in every direction. 

 These are exceedingly numerous, and seem to 

 form as essential a part in the constitution of 

 our globe, as the mountains from which they 

 flow, and as the ocean to which they direct 

 their course. It is reckoned, that in the old con 

 tinent there are about 430 rivers which fall di 

 rectly into the ocean, or into the Mediterra 

 nean and the Black seas ; but in the new conti 

 nent, there are only about 145 rivers known, which 

 fall directly into the sea. In this enumeration, 

 however, only the great rivers are included, such 

 as the Thames, the Danube, the Wolga, and 

 the Rhone. Besides these, there are many 

 thousands of streams of smaller dimensions, 

 which, rising from the mountains, wind in every 

 direction, till they fall into the large rivers, or 

 are carried into the ocean. The largest rivers 

 in Europe are the Wolga, which, rising in the 

 northern parts of Russia, runs a course of 1700 

 miles, till it falls into the Caspian Sea the 

 Danube, whose course is 1300 miles, from the 

 mountains of Switzerland to the Black Sea 

 and the Don, which runs a course of 1200 miles. 

 The greatest rivers in Asia are the Hoanho, 

 iv. China, whose course is 2400 miles the 

 &quot;Boorhampooter, the Euphrates, and the Ganges. 

 The longest river in Africa is the Nile, the 

 course of which is estimated at 2000 miles. 

 In tne continent of America, the rivers appear 



The demonstration of this proposition may be 

 neen in Niouwentyt s Religious Philosopher, vol. 

 iii. p. 883. 



to be formed on the grandest scale, both as to 

 the length of their course, and the vast body of 

 waters which they pour into the ocean. The 

 Amazon, the largest river in the world, runs a 

 course of above 3000 miles across the conti 

 nent of South America, till it falls into the 

 Atlantic ocean, where it discharges j. body of 

 waters 150 miles in breadth. Next to this is 

 the river St. Lawrence, which is more than 

 2400 miles from its mouth through the lake 

 Ontario to the Lake Alernpigo and the Assini- 

 boils ; and the rivers La Plata and Mississippi, 

 each of whose courses is not less than 2000 

 miles. 



When we consider the number and the magni 

 tude of these majestic streams, it is evident that 

 an enormous mass of water is continually pouring 

 into the ocean, from every direction. From ob 

 servations which have been made on the rivet 

 Po, which runs through Lombardy, and waters 

 a tract of land 380 miles long and 120 broad, it 

 is found, that it moves at the rate of four miles 

 an hour, is 1000 feet broad, and 10 feet in depth, 

 and, consequently, supplies the sea with 5068 

 millions of cubical feet of water in a day, or a 

 cubical mile in 29 days. On the supposition 

 that the quantity of water which the sea receives 

 from the great rivers in all countries is propor 

 tional to the extent and surface of those coun 

 tries, it will follow, that the quantity of waters 

 carried to the sea by all the other rivers on the 

 globe is 1083 times greater than that, furnished 

 by the Po, (supposing the land, as formerly 

 stated, to contain about 49 millions of square 

 miles,) and will supply the ocean with 13,630 

 cubical miles of water in a year. Now reckon 

 ing the ocean, as formerly, to contain 296 mil 

 lions of cubical miles of water, this last number, 

 divided by the former, will give a quotient of 

 21,716. Hence it appears, that, were the 

 ocean completely drained of its waters, it would 

 require more than twenty thousand year f before 

 its caverns could be again completely filled 

 by all the rivers in the world running into it at 

 their present rate. 



Here, two questions will naturally occur 

 Whence do the rivers receive so constant a sup 

 ply of waters ? and why has not the ocean long 

 ago overflowed the world ? since so prodigious a 

 mass of water is continually flowing into its 

 abyss. This was a difficulty which long puz 

 zled philosophers ; but it is now satisfactorily 

 solved from a consideration of the effects of 

 evaporation. By the heat of the sun the parti 

 cles of water are drawn up into the atmosphere 



f Buffon makes this result to be 812 years, in 

 which he is followed by Goldsmith, and most subse 

 quent writers ; but he proceeds on the false assump 

 tion, that the ocean covers only half the surface of 

 the globe, and that it contains only 85 millions of 

 square miles, and he estimates the average depth of 

 the ocean to be only 440 yards, or one-fourth of a 



