THE EARTH. 



67 



CHAPTER XV. 



OF THE OCEAN IN GENERAL; AND OF ITS SALTNESS. 



IF we look upon a map of the world, we 

 shall find that the ocean occupies considera- 

 bly more of the globe, than the land is found 

 to do. This immense body of waters is dif- 

 fused round both the Old and New Conti- 

 nent, to the south ; and may surround them 

 also to the north, for what we know, but the 

 ice in those regions has stopped our inqui- 

 ries. Although the ocean, properly speak- 

 ing, is but one extensive sheet of waters, con- 

 tinued over every part of the globe, without 

 interruption, and although no part of it is di- 

 vided from the rest, yet geographers have 

 distinguished it by different names ; as the 

 Atlantic or Western Ocean, the Northern 

 Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the Pacific 

 Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Others have 

 divided it differently, and given other names ; 

 as the Frozen Ocean, the Inferior Ocean, or 

 the American Ocean. But all these being 

 arbitrary distinctions, and not of Nature's 

 making, the naturalist may consider them 

 with indifference. 



In this vast receptacle, almost all the rivers 

 of the earth ultimately terminate; nor do 

 such great supplies seem to increase its 

 stores ; for it is neither apparently swollen 

 by their tribute, nor diminished by their fai- 

 lure ; it still continues the same. Indeed, 

 what is the quantity of water of all the rivers 

 and lakes in the world, compared to that con- 

 tained in this great receptacle ? B If we 

 should offer to make a rude estimate, we shall 

 find that all the rivers in the world, flowing 

 into the bed of the sea, with a continuance 

 of their present stores, would take up at least 

 eight hundred years to till it to its present 

 height. For, supposing the sea to be eighty- 

 five millions of square miles in extent, and a 

 quarter of a mile upon an average in depth, 

 this, upon calculation, will give above twen- 

 ty-one millions of cubic miles of water, as the 

 contents of the whole ocean. Now, to esti- 



Buffon, vol. ii. p. ~Q. 

 KO. 7- 



mate the quantity of water which all the ri- 

 vers supply, take any one of them ; the Po, 

 for instance, the quantity of whose discharge 

 into the sea, is known to be one cubic mile 

 of water in twenty-six days. Now it will be 

 found, upon a rude computation, from the 

 quantity of ground the Po, Avith its influent 

 streams, covers, that all the the rivers of the 

 world furnish about two thousand times that 

 quantity of water. In the space of a year, 

 therefore, they will have discharged into the 

 sea about twenty-six thousand cubic miles of 

 water ; and not till eight hundred years, will 

 they have discharged as much water as is 

 contained in the sea at present. I have no<. 

 troubled the reader with the odd num- 

 bers, lest he should imagine I was giving 

 precision to a subject that is incapable of 

 it. 



Thus great is the assemblage of waters dif- 

 fused round our habitable globe ; and yet. 

 immeasurable as they seem, they are mostly 

 rendered subservient to the necessities and 

 the conveniences of so little a being as man. 

 Nevertheless, if it should be asked whe- 

 ther they be made for him alone, the ques- 

 tion is not easily resolved. Some philoso- 

 phers have perceived so much analogy to 

 man in the formation of the ocean, that they 

 have not hesitated to assert its being made 

 for him alone. The distribution of land and 

 water, 1 " say they, is admirable ; the one being 

 laid against the other so skilfully, that there 

 is a just equipoise of the whole globe. Thus 

 the Northern Ocean balances against the 

 Southern ; and the New Continent is an ex- 

 act counterweight to the Old, As to any ob 

 jection from the ocean's occupying too large 

 a share of the globe, they contend, that there 

 could not have been a smaller surface em- 

 ployed to supply the earth with a due share 

 of evaporation. On the other hand, some 

 take the gloomy side of the question; they 



b Derham's Physico-Theol. 

 T 



