BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 103 



raised, in vapours from the Mediterranean alone, no 

 less than five thousand two hundred and eighty mil- 

 lions of tuns of water. The air and sun are the 

 mighty engines which work, without intermission, 

 to raise the water from this inexhaustible cistern. 

 The clouds, as uoqueducts, convey the genial stores 

 along the atmosphere, and distribute them in sea- 

 sonable and regular proportions through all the re- 

 gions of the globe. 



A superficial observer may be apt to imagine, that 

 if the watery element had been less copiously dif- 

 fused, and more confined to a deeper bed, a greater 

 part of the earth might have been converted into dry 

 land, and, consequently, made habitable to a larger 

 portion of the human species ; but such do not con- 

 sider, that the clouds, which drop down fatness, de- 

 rive th^ir fertilizing quality from the vapours exhaled 

 from the ocean, and that to abridge the liquid ex- 

 panse of its extent, would' be only depriving those 

 aerial water-bearers of part of their genial stores, so 

 indispensably necessary to render that portion of 

 the dry land we already possess productive. How 

 amazing that water, without which we can scarcely 

 perform any business, or enjoy any comfort, should 

 be thus brought to stream by our doors, and enter 

 our houses, from the remotest regions from the far 

 ofr' and unfrequented paths of the great deep ; that 

 this boundless mass of fluid salt, so intolerably nau- 

 seous to the taste, should be the original source of 

 those sweet and pleasing showers that descend to 

 water and refresh the earth. 



