EFFECTS OF ITS SALTNESS. 27 



Why was the sea made salt ? If the sea were not made 

 salt, the rays of the sun could not so readily penetrate it. 

 This penetration of the waters by the sun's rays produces 

 expansion. The force or dynamical power resulting from 

 this expansion, or the spreading up and outward of the 

 waters, increases the circulation of the currents. Were the 

 waters of the sea fresh instead of salt, Ave should probably 

 have no such thing as a Gulf Stream nor marine climate ; 

 the torrid zone would have been hotter and the frigid zone 

 colder ; and the climate of England would have vied with 

 Labrador for inhospitality : all for the lack of the watery 

 circulation. With no salts in the seas, evaporation, volume 

 of our rivers, and the quantity of rain, would all have been 

 different. The thunderbolt of the heavens, the sheet light- 

 ning of the clouds, and the fitful flashes of the storm, all 

 have their beginning principally in the salts of the sea. 



With a few exceptions, such as the Red Sea, Great Salt 

 Lake, etc., the salts of the sea are everywhere the same. 

 They could not be made so, were they not well shaken to- 

 gether. The circulation of the currents of the sea is quite 

 as perfect and wonderful as the circulation of the blood in 

 our bodies. Evaporation in some waters is more rapid than 

 in others. Water can hold only a given amount of salt in solu- 

 tion. We cannot see that the quantity of salt deposits is 

 increasing. It reasonably follows from all this that there 

 must be a system of circulation in the waters, whereby an 

 equilibrium is produced, making each and all of the waters of 

 the same degree of saltness. The currents which produce 

 these results do not flow from chance, but in accordance 

 with physical laws, assisting to maintain the order and pre- 

 serve the harmony which is so apparent in every depart- 

 ment of God's handiwork. 



The coral islands of the Pacific were built up of matter 

 which a certain kind ofanimalquarried from the ocean. These 

 rivers of the sea become the hod-carriers of the little animal. 



