12(3 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



arrangements and adjustments ; to answer all at 

 once, purposes so varied, to combine without 

 confusion so many different trains, implies powers 

 and attributes which can hardly fail to excite in 

 a high degree our admiration and reverence. 



If the atmosphere be considered as a vast 

 machine, it is difficult to form any just concep- 

 tion of the profound skill and comprehensiveness 

 of design which it displays. It diffuses and 

 tempers the heat of different climates ; for this 

 purpose it performs a circulation occupying the 

 whole range from the pole to the equator ; and 

 while it is doing this, it executes many smaller 

 circuits between the sea and the land. At the 

 same time, it is the means of forming clouds and 

 rain, and for this purpose, a perpetual circulation 

 of the watery part of the atmosphere goes on be- 

 tween its lower and upper regions. Besides this 

 complication of circuits, it exercises a more irre- 

 gular agency, in the occasional winds which blow 

 from all quarters, tending perpetually to restore 

 the equilibrium of heat and moisture. But this 

 incessant and multiplied activity discharges only 

 a part of the functions of the air. It is, moreover, 

 the most important and universal material of the 

 growth and sustenance of plants and animals ; and 

 is for this purpose every where present and almost 

 uniform in its quantity. With all its local motion, 

 it has also the office of a medium of communica- 

 tion between intelligent creatures, which office it 



