150 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



our nervous, dyspeptic tendencies for the salt. 

 Hence our need, as a people, of that great tonic and 

 sedative, the seashore. In Biblical times, new- 

 born babies were rubbed with salt. I suppose it 

 stimulated them and quickened their circulation. 

 American babies are not thus rubbed, and there 

 comes a time with most of us when we feel that 

 the operation cannot be put off any longer, and we 

 rush down to the sea to have the service performed 

 by the old nurse herself, and the pores of both 

 mind and body well cleansed and opened. 



Nothing about the sea is more impressive than 

 its ceaseless rocking. Without either wind or tide, 

 it would probably be restless and oscillating, be- 

 cause it registers and passes along the fluctuations 

 of the earthy crust. The solid ground is only rela- 

 tively solid. The scientists, under the direction of 

 the British Association, who sought to determine 

 the influence of the moon upon the earth's crust, 

 found, as soon as their instruments were delicate 

 enough to register the influence of that body, many 

 other agencies at work. They could find no really 

 solid sjDot to plant their instruments upon. Thus, 

 over the area of a high barometer, the earth's crust 

 bent beneath the weight of the column of air. At 

 sea the waters are pressed down. The waves of 

 the atmospheric ocean, as they sweep around the 

 earth in vast alternations, cause both land and 

 water to rise and fall as beneath the tread of some 

 striding Colossus. This unequal barometric pres- 

 sure over the Atlantic area would, doubtless, of 



