432 THE CHEMISTS Y OF CREATION. 



wheat, &c., and to be conveyed into the river 

 in the exuviae of our sewers. 



Eecurring to the important occasional in- 

 gredients noticed as being present from time to 

 time in the air, and considering the analysis 

 given at the commencement of this chapter as 

 the normal or standard representation of the 

 chemical constitution of the sea, it may be asked, 

 Are not "occasional ingredients" present like- 

 wise at times in the waters of the ocean? 

 Darwin says he saw a considerable tract of the 

 ocean on the coast of Mexico covered with a 

 thin iridescent coat of oil. This is supposed to 

 have arisen from the putrefaction of a whale. 

 The sea, as has been before remarked, near the 

 Cape de Verd islands, is not unfrequently 

 seen covered with a film of rock oil. In 

 the waters which bathe the coasts of volcanic 

 regions, evidence exists to show that occasional 

 ingredients, fatal to animal life, are added from 

 time to time to the sea. Thus we are informed 

 that at the eastern extremity of Java there is 

 a lake containing sulphuric acid, a quarter of a 

 mile long, from which a river of acid water 

 issues, which supports no living creature, nor 

 can fish live in the sea near its confluence. It is 

 one of the frequent phenomena of earthquakes, 

 that the sea-water of the regions where they 

 occur is covered with shoals of fish poisoned by 

 the addition of some deleterious ingredients to 



