42 DESCENT OF DEW. — UNIVERSAL BOUNTY 0¥ NATURE. 



the surface as a whole tends gradually towards a cooler state. But 

 while the sun shines this cooling will not take place, for the earth then 

 receives in general more heat than it gives offi and if the clear sky be 

 shut out by a canopy of clouds, these will arrest and again throw back 

 a portion of the heat, and prevent it from being so speedily dissipated. 

 At night, then, when the sun is absent, the earth will cool the most ; on , 

 clear nights also more than when it is cloudy, and when clouds only 

 partially obscure the sky, those parts will become coolest which look to- 

 wards the clearest portions of the heavens. 



Now when the surface cools, the air in contact with it must cool also ; 

 and like the warm currents on the mountain side, must forsake a portion 

 of the watery vapour it has hitheito retained. This water, like the float- 

 ing mist on the hills, descends in particles almost infinitely minute. 

 These particles collect on every leaflet, and suspend themselves from 

 every blade of grass, in drops of" pearly dew." 



And mark here a beautiful adaptation. Different substances are en- 

 dowed with the property of radiating their heat, and of thus becoming 

 cool with different degrees of rapidity, and those substances which in 

 the air become cool first, also attract first and most abundantly the par- 

 ticles of falling dew. Thus in the cool of a summer's evening the grass 

 plot is wet, while the gravel walk is dry ; and the thirsty pasture and ev- 

 ery green leaf are drinking in the descending moisture, while the naked 

 land and I he barren highway are still unconscious of its fall. 



How beautiful is tlie contrivance by which water is thus evaporated or 

 distilled as it were into the atmosphere — largely perhaps from some par- 

 ticular spots, — then diffused equably through the wide and restless air, — 

 and afterwards precipitated again in refreshing showers or in long-mys- 

 rerious dews!* But how much more beautiful the contrivance, I might 

 almost say the instinctive tendency, by which the dew selects the objects 

 on which it delights to fall ; descending first on every living plant, copi- 

 ously ministering to the wants of each, and expending its superfluity 

 only on the unproductive waste. 



And equally kind and bountiful, yet provident, is nature in all her 

 operations, and through all her works. Neither skill nor materials are 

 ever wasted ; and yet she ungrudgingly dispenses her favours, apparent- 

 ly without measure, — and has subjected dead matter to laws which 

 compel it to minister, and yet with a most ready willingness, to the 

 wants and comforts of every living thing. 



And how -unceasingly does she press this her example not only of un- 

 bounded goodness, but of universal charity — above all other men— on 

 the attention of the tiller of the soil. Does the corn spring more 

 freshly when scattered by a Protestant hand — are the harvests more 

 abundant on a Catholic soil, — and does not the sun shine alike, and the 

 dew descend, on the domains of each political party ? 



• The beauty of this arrangement appears more striking when we consider that the whole 

 ofthe watery vapour in the air, if it fell at once in the form of rain, would not amount to 

 more than 5 inches in depth on the whole surface ofthe globe. In England the fall of rain 

 varies from 22 inches (London, York, and Edinburgh) to 68 (Keswick), while in some few parts 

 of the world (St. Domingo) it amounts to as much as 150 inches. The mean fall of rain 

 over the whole earth is estimated at 32 or 33 inches ; but if we suppose it to be only 10 or 16 

 Inches, the water which thus falls will require to be two or three times re-distilled in the course 

 of every year. This is exclusive of dew, which in many countries amounts to a very 

 large (juantity.— See Proul's Bridgewaler Treatise, p. 309. 



