172 THE SEA. 



had disappeared ; since his experience of six thousand 

 years has left him utterly unconscious, till yesterday, 

 that such things existed. Yet how soon would the 

 tale be told ! and how sadly ! What blanks would 

 presently be seen ! what great rents in the beauteous 

 web of nature ! What distortions of the admirable 

 unity ! What disturbances of the delicate balance of 

 creation ! The "foundations" of the physical world 

 would be, like those of the moral, " out of course ;" and 

 unless some countervail were quickly applied by the 

 remedial wisdom of Him who is infinite in resources, 

 the whole cosmical system might be hopelessly de- 

 ranged. The whole race of Salpce, and Ascidice, and 

 Concliiferous Mollusca would starve and disappear; 

 entire genera of fishes would be lost; the sea-fowl 

 would starve ; the seals and dolphins would perish ; 

 the Arctic bear would seek in vain for food ; and the 

 great whales would pine and die of hunger. The 

 solitary ocean would be a waste of death ; animal life 

 would cease throughout its expanses ; fheAlgce would 

 grow and grow till they had exhausted the carbonic 

 acid, and then die for want of a fresh supply. Putrid 

 exhalations and morbific miasmata would sweep over 

 the land, and death would soon reign undisputed here. 

 Wha,t disturbances of existing laws might ensue from 

 the failure of the present incessant depositions of in- 

 organic matter on the sea-bed, we cannot even con- 

 jecture; but doubtless these would not be few or 

 unimportant. On the whole, dimly as we discern the 

 catenation of cause and effect, it seems not at all ex- 



