CO MP ENS A TING MO I '/■. MENTS 7 



on the emerged fields of the cartli ; the battle the oceans 

 unendingly wage is so set that it assaults the opposing land in 

 two directions : on the sea face it assails by the surges, and 

 in the interior by the rain, the flowing water, and the glaciers. 

 The result is that the lands are constantly wearing away, 

 while the sea-tloor receives the sediments which the waters 

 have given to it and builds them into new deposits. 



The effect of this action, if it were not qualified b\- other 

 conditions, would be that in time the dry parts of the earth 

 would utterly disappear and the seas be in good part filled 

 with the waste they had won from them ; but there are com- 

 pensations to this action . the lands are constantK' growing 

 upward from the action of those forces which elevate moun- 

 tain-chains, probably also the whole of the vast ridge which 

 constitutes the body of each continent is also characterized by 

 a massive upward growth ; at the same time the ocean basins 

 seem to be ever deepening b)- the downsinking of their floors. 

 The result of these beautiful compensating movements is, 

 that although the contest between land and sea is the most 

 ancient, far extended, and unbroken of all the man\' combats 

 which make up the life of this sphere, neither side is ever 

 victorious or is ever likely to prevail. It is Indeed only in 

 a metaphoric way that it can be called a battle at all. for the 

 results of the interaction are profitable to the interests of sea 

 and land alike. On the land the continued wearing has the 

 most important result, that the soils on which all its organic 

 life depends are ever renewed b\- the destructive processes of 

 erosion. If any considerable time went b)- without the old 

 soils being swept away, the effete earthy matter would be- 

 come unfit for the nurture of plants, and plant and animal life 

 alike w^ould fail of support. This waste, in jiart tlissolved in 



