THE ELEMENTS. 'SIS 



see the salutary effects of storms and tempests. The yesty 

 waves, which confound the heaven and the sea, are doing 

 the very thing which is done in the bottle. Nothing can 

 be of greater importance to the living creation, than the 

 salubrity of their atmosphere. It ought to reconcile us 

 therefore to these agitations of the elements, of which we 

 sometimes deplore the consequences, to know, that they 

 tend powerfully to restore to the air that purity, which so 

 many causes are constantly impairing. 



II. In WATER, what ought not a little to be admired, 

 are those negative qualities which constitute its purity. 

 Had it been vinous, or oleaginous, or acid ; had the sea 

 been filled, or the rivers flowed with wine or milk ; fish, 

 constituted as they are, must have died; plants, constitut- 

 ed as they are, would have withered ; the lives of animals, 

 which feed upon plants, must have perished. Its very in- 

 sipiditi/, which is one of those negative qualities, renders 

 it the best of all menstrua. Having no taste of its own, 

 it becomes the sincere vehicle of every other. Had there 

 been a taste in water, be it what it might, it would have 

 infected every thing we ate or drank, with an importunate 

 repetition of the same flavour. 



Another thing in this element, not less to be admired, 

 is the constant round which it travels ; and by which, 

 without suffering either adulteration or waste, it is contin- 

 ually offering itself to the wants of the habitable globe. 

 From the sea are exhaled those vapours which form the 

 clouds. These clouds descend in showers, which, pene- 

 trating into the crevices of the hills, supply springs. Which 

 springs flow in little streams into the vallies ; and, there 

 uniting, become rivers. Which rivers, in return, feed the 

 ocean. So there is an incessant circulation of the same 

 fluid ; and not one drop probably more or less now than 

 there was at the creation. A particle of water takes its 

 departure from the surface of the sea, in order to fulfil cer- 

 tain important offices to the earth ; and, having executed 

 the service which was assigned to it, returns to the bosom 

 which it left. 



Some have thought that we have too much water upon 

 the globe ; the sea occupying above three quarters of its 

 whole surface. But the expanse of ocean, immense as it 

 is, may be no more than sufficient to fertilize the earth. 

 Or, independently of this reason, I know not why the sea 

 may not have as good a right to its place as the land. It 

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