118 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



from those two inland seas outward to the oceans 

 with which they are connected, carrying with 

 them the waters which by the process of evapo- 

 ration have become salter, and therefore heavier, 

 than those of the ocean ; and were this process not 

 to be carried on, it cannot be doubted that the 

 depths of the Mediterranean and the Eed Sea 

 would, in process of time, become filled, not only 

 with water saturated with the chemical ingredients 

 of sea-water, but that they would become filled 

 up by deposits of solid crystals of marine salts. 



The Indian Ocean and the Pacific have their 

 currents arising from several causes and variously 

 modified, but all obviously subject to physical 

 laws which give regularity to their phenomena, 

 and minister to the great system of circulation in 

 the waters of the ocean. + 



But the most remarkable of all the ocean cur- 

 rents is the Grulf-stream. This vast flow of waters 

 is more rapid in its course than the Amazon or 

 the Mississippi, and a thousand times greater in 

 its volume than either^ of these majestic rivers. 

 The Gulf-stream may truly be called one of the 

 most marvellous things in the natural history of 

 the sea. It has its birth in the Mexican Gulf, 

 from which it flows along the shore towards the 

 British islands, the North Sea, and the Frozen 

 Ocean. Our knowledge of the various causes 

 in which this vast current originates, and by 

 which it is modified, is in many respects indefi- 

 nite, but, according to the views of Maury, two of 

 the principal agents concerned in producing the 



