440 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



until they dash at length, with a hollow 

 sound, in foaming breakers at our feet. Far as 

 the eye can reach across the surface even of 

 this comparatively tranquil ocean, it beholds 

 nothing but line after line of heaving waves; 

 now and then a taller and broader billow than 

 the rest marking its pre-eminence by a white 

 crest curling on its summit. It may appear 

 that little interesting to the student or to the 

 philosopher is to be found in the phenomena of 

 waves, beyond their beauty, or their sublimity, 

 or their force. To look upon this widely agi- 

 tated surface, it would seem a vain attempt to 

 discover anything like harmony or order in 

 phenomena so apparently confused and irre- 

 gular as those of waves. Yet there is much 

 philosophy, and that of a very abstruse order, 

 concerned in the explanation of their move- 

 ments ; and, incredible though it would seem, 

 there is a real harmony and order of a very 

 beautiful kind, observable in these seemingly 

 disordered and commingled masses of water. 

 Some of these waves are round and long, others 

 are high and sharp ; some advance with a great, 

 others with a less velocity ; and all present a 

 certain general form familiar to the mind as 

 the form of a sea in agitation, which at once 

 distinguishes it from all other phenomena. 

 How striking the thought, not one of these 



