106 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



quite to alter the relation of the two. By the 

 laws having such forms and such rates as they 

 have, effects are produced, some of which we 

 can distinctly perceive to be beneficial. Perhaps 

 most persons will feel a strong persuasion, that if 

 we understood the operation of these laws more 

 distinctly, we should see still more clearly the 

 beneficial tendency of these effects, and should 

 probably discover others, at present concealed in 

 the apparent perplexity of the subject. 



3. From what has been said, we may see, in 

 a general way, both the causes and the effects 

 of winds. They arise from any disturbance by 

 temperature, motion, pressure, &c. of the equili- 

 brium of the atmosphere, and are the efforts of 

 nature to restore the balance. Their office in the 

 economy of nature is to carry heat and moisture 

 from one tract to another, and they are the great 

 agents in the distribution of temperature and the 

 changes of weather. Other purposes might easily 

 be ascribed to them in the business of the vege- 

 table and animal kingdoms, and in the arts of 

 human life, of which we shall not here treat. 

 That character in which we now consider them, 

 that of the machinery of atmospheric changes, 

 and thus, immediately or remotely, the instru- 

 ments of atmospheric influences, cannot well be 

 refused them by any person. 



4. There is still one reflexion which ought not 

 to be omitted. All the changes of the weather, 



