404 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



the sea which was sounded in his travels. It 

 was found, in a series of experiments made in 

 some places in the Gulf Stream, on letting 

 down the lead to the depth of 600 feet, and 

 raising it again, it was so hot* as not to allow 

 being handled. The experiments were many 

 times repeated with the same result, and the 

 inference could not be denied, that below the 

 cool surface of the blue waters was a bed of water 

 not far off boiling point ! 



In consequence of the bad radiating proper- 

 ties of water, the temperature of the ocean is 

 much less subject to variations than that of the 

 air, and the variations which occur are small 

 in amount. The result of this is, that the air 

 overlying the ocean is much more uniform in 

 regard of temperature than that over the land. 

 In parallels where the range of the thermo- 

 meter suspended in air over land, amounts to 

 twenty or thirty degrees, or even more, a ther- 

 mometer suspended over the ocean's surface 

 does not range more than five or six degrees. 

 Thus the effect of the presence of the sea upon 

 a climate is to equalize it ; and this is remarkably 

 the case in the climatology of small islands. In 

 the Channel Islands, for example, in Guernsey 



* This phenomenon was probably due to the existence 

 either of some submarine volcano, or of some spring rising 

 from the heated interior of the earth. 



