BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN. 107 



inequalities most apt to produce them. The bottom 

 of th^sea, like the surface of the earth, is overspread 

 with mountains, intersected with inequalities. In all 

 mountainous places currents will be violent ; in all 

 places where the bottom of the sea is level, they will 

 be almost imperceptible. 



Whirlpools appear to be no other than the eddies 

 of the water formed by the action of two or more 

 opposite currents. The Euripus, nigh the Grecian 

 coast, and famous for the death of Aristotle, alter- 

 nately absorbs and rejects the water seven times in 

 twenty-four hours The Charybdis, near the straits 

 of Sicily, rejects and absorbs the water thrice in 

 twenty-four hours ; and the greatest known whirlpool 

 in the world, that in the Norway sea, which is affirm- 

 ed to be upwards of twenty leagues in circumference, 

 is said to absorb, for six hours, whales, ships, and 

 every thing that comes hear it, and afterwards returns 

 them in the same quantity of time as it drew them in. 



But that which gives to the sea its unremitting and 

 universal impulse, which suffers it not to rest for a 

 single moment over all its wide extended bounds, but 

 keeps it in perpetual agitation, and makes it, a it 

 were, remain vigorous, and acquire health by exer- 

 cise, from one extremity of the earth to the other, is 

 that wonderful and truly surprising phenomenon of 

 nature, the flux and reflux of the tides. 



This wonderful phenomenon, so inconceivable to 

 the ancients, is accounted for by the moderns, on the 

 principle of gravitation, and has been demonstrated 

 to be under the influence of the moon; but from 



