Tma OCEAN AND ITS LIFE. 91 



How quietly, how silently nature works in her great 

 household ! Unheard and unseen, these enormous masses 

 of water rise up from the broad seas of the earth, and 

 yet it requires not less than one-third of the whole warmth 

 which the sun grants to our globe, to lift them up from 

 the ocean to the region of clouds. Raised thus by forces 

 far beyond our boldest speculations, and thence returning 

 as blessed rain, as humble mill-race, or as active, rapid 

 high-road, carrying huge loads from land to land, the ocean 

 receives back again its own, and thus completes one of its 

 great movements in the eternal circle through water, air, 

 and land. 



But the mighty 'ocean rests not even in its own legi- 

 timate limits. When not driven about as spray, as mist, 

 as rain, when gently reposing in its eternal home on the 

 bosom of the great earth, it is still subject to powerful in- 

 fluences from abroad. That mysterious force which chains 

 sun to sun, and planet to planet, which calls back the 

 wandering comet to its central sun, and binds the worlds 

 in one great universe, the force of general attraction, must 

 needs have its effect upon the waters also, and under the 

 control of sun and moon, they perform a second race 

 around the globe on which we live. 



When the companions of Nearchus, under Alexander 

 the Great, reached the mouth of the Indus, nothing excited 

 their amazement in that wonderful country so much as 

 the regular rise and fall of all the ocean a phenomenon 

 which they had never seen at home, on the coasts of Asia 

 Minor and Greece. Even their short stay there sufficed, 

 however, to show them the connection of this astonishing 



