198 HISTORY OF 



as the contents of the whole ocean. Now, to 

 estimate the quantity of water which all the rivers 

 supply, take any one of them ; the Po, for in- 

 stance, the quantity of whose discharge into the 

 sea is known to be one cubic mile of water in 

 twenty-six days. Now it will be found, upon a 

 rude computation, from the quantity of ground 

 the Po, with its influent streams, covers, that all 

 the rivers of the world furnish about two thousand 

 times that quantity of water. In the space of a 

 year, therefore, they will have discharged into the 

 sea about twenty-six thousand cubic miles of 

 water ; and not till eight hundred years, will they 

 have discharged as much water as is contained in 

 the sea at present. I have not troubled the 

 reader with the odd numbers, lest he should ima- 

 gine I was giving precision to a subject that is 

 incapable of it. 



Thus great is the assemblage of waters diffused 

 round our habitable globe ; and yet, immea- 

 surable as they seem, they are mostly rendered 

 subservient to the necessities and the conve- 

 niencies of so little a being as man. Nevertheless, 

 if it should be asked whether they be made for 

 him alone, the question is not easily resolved. 

 Some philosophers have perceived so much ana,- 

 logy to man in the formation of the ocean, that 

 they have not hesitated to assert its being made 

 for him alone. The distribution of land and 

 water, * say they, is admirable ; the one being 

 laid against the other so skilfully, that there is a 



* Derbam's 1'hysico-Theol. 



