INTRODUCTION XV 



a Quixotic tilt against human feeling ; for who that 

 has lost a dear one, or his livelihood, can be consoled 

 by the reflection that it is for the benefit of the nation ? 

 I have only tried to show, as the Scripture does, that 

 " all things work together for good," even the " stormy 

 wind fulfilling His word," and I trust I shall be for- 

 given for introducing here these ancient words, which 

 so aptly express the operations of Nature in obedience 

 to that High directing-power which most of us have 

 agreed to call God. 



In the winds, of course, we have the circulation of 

 the atmospheric ocean, which, like the circulation of 

 the blood in the body, is ever active in health for good. 

 Unlike the circulation of the blood in the body, how- 

 ever, the circulation of the atmosphere needs no drugs 

 or physician's advice. It provides its own remedy, if 

 there is any sluggishness or stagnation, by getting up 

 a storm or even a hurricane, and the healthful equili- 

 brium is at once restored. But as there is a circulation 

 of the atmospheric ocean, so likewise is there a circula- 

 tion of the watery ocean, although this is far less 

 spasmodic, far more equable in its flow than that of 

 the air. Here we have a subject curiously complex. 

 It is international in its interest as regards the in- 

 cidents of the tides, peculiarly local in its interests as 

 regards the currents. And the main difficulty is to 

 get the average man to discriminate between tide 

 and current. I have strenuously endeavoured to show 

 that difference in the chapters on currents and tides, 

 and can only hope that I have in some measure 

 succeeded. The steady ebb and flow of tides all over 

 the world, dependent upon the movements of the moon 

 and earth, are of the greatest importance to mankind 



