THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 221 



the old-fashioned pauses in intercourse were not as salutary 

 as these instant communications; giving longer time for 

 passions to subside, and for first impressions to ripen by re- 

 flection ; and preserving to the diplomatist a responsibility, 

 equally essential to his own honour and to the interests of 

 the country he represents. In time of war (absit omen /), 

 the advantages obtained may be more numerous and certain. 

 But even here we must balance them against the effects of 

 lessened responsibility to those engaged in the duties of 

 actual command; and of faulty information at a distance 

 superseding the better judgement derived from local know- 

 ledge. We are aware however that there is a double aspect 

 to all these points ; and without pressing further any such 

 ambiguous presages, we shall be ready to join in the general 

 gratulation on the success of an undertaking thus wonderful 

 as an effort of human genius and power ; and destined, we 

 trust, to link together still more closely in amity as well as 

 intercourse, the two great nations already having kindred in 

 origin, language, and common liberties. 



We have occupied so much space with the various topics, 

 that our notice of the other parts of Captain Maury's volume 

 must be a very limited one. In a chapter on the ' Salts of the 

 Sea,' he propounds his views, and perhaps with some ex- 

 aggeration, as to their influence in creating ocean currents 

 by the different specific gravity of strata of water differently 

 charged with salt. To the curious question regarding the 

 origin of this saline matter, (amounting to three and a half 

 per cent, in the average of all seas,) he answers that it was 

 thus when the Ocean was created ; that no washing down of 

 salts by rivers can adequately explain the phenomenon, and 

 that the ( Christian man of science ' may rest his belief, on 

 the absence of any proof from Scripture that the sea waters 

 were ever fresh. Even accepting the conclusion as probable, 

 we must repeat our remonstrance against this mode of 



