194 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA : 



tions thus multiplied on every side the log even of the 

 common merchant brig being admitted to its share in the 

 work facts will speedily become numerous enough to yield 

 results of the highest certainty and value. The method of 

 averages, now so potent an aid to research, has especial 

 application here, furnishing a secure approach to conclusions 

 which no detached observations could reach. 



Though Captain Maury claims all seas for his province, 

 the larger portion of his volume is occupied with the great 

 Ocean which separates the Old from the New World; a very 

 natural effect of the supreme importance of the Atlantic to 

 the commerce of nations, and of the greater knowledge thus 

 attained of all its physical phenomena.* Considered as a 

 scientific treatise, our author has not done full justice to 

 himself, or to his subject, by his manner of dealing with it. 

 We are unwilling to be hypercritical where there is so much 

 real merit ; but it is impossible not to see in his work a desul- 

 tory desire for novelty, frequently going far beyond the 

 bounds of true science, and venting itself in a phraseology 

 which loses its force and effect by being too sedulous to 

 attain them. With a little more constraint upon his specula- 

 tions, and a clearer separation of fact and hypothesis, he 

 would be a valuable scientific writer. With somewhat less 

 intention of fine writing, he would be an eloquent one. 



It is with reluctance that we advert to another character- 

 istic of this volume : we mean the very frequent and 

 incautious reference to passages in Scripture ; not solely for 

 illustration, but even as authority for physical truths, or 

 argument for hypotheses still unproved. Lieut. Maury is 

 evidently a man of strong and sincere religious feelings, and 



* It will be seen that we have given place on our list to another work, by 

 Captain Philippe de Kerhallet of the French Navy, having more especial rela- 

 tion to this Ocean ; less scientific in its character than that of Captain Maury, 

 and less animated and vigorous in its descriptive part, but nevertheless con- 

 taining much that is of great practical value for navigation. 



