378 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



atmospheric ocean there are many other 

 cycles and cyclones, furious and moderate, 

 great and small, down to the petty momen- 

 tary eddy of the autumnal breeze. Note- 

 worthy, however, is this tendency of mobile 

 air to run into circuits, in part determined 

 thereto by the rotary motion of the round 

 Earth. The science of Meteorology deals 

 with this great variety of wind currents which 

 are also the bearers of heat and cold. 



If air be the universal element surrounding 

 the whole earth, water is a partial element 

 covering about three-fourths of the terrestrial 

 surface. The characteristic of water in con- 

 trast to air is its non-elasticity, its unyield- 

 ing nature, being almost incompressible. It 

 has a hard molecular individuality, though so 

 easily separative and penetrable; it is the 

 digger, tearer of continents and leveler of 

 mountains; also the chief transporter of 

 Earth's burdens, not merelv on its surface 



V 



but in its currents. There is little doubt that 

 land was born of water ; also the earliest life 

 arose in the sea, man still bears traces that 

 he was once an aqueous monster. Water in 

 doing its work goes in a circle, running down 

 hill in the rivers, then rising through evap- 

 oration into the air and returning to the fluvial 

 sources in order to make the same round over 

 again. So we see a perpetual process of these 



