403 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [i"r. n. 



Molar motion stored up in these vast masses of moving air is 

 given out not only in the driving of clouds, but also in the 

 raking of waves on rivers and oceans ; and it is still further 

 expended in the wearing away of shores and indentation of 

 eoast-lines which these waves effect. All the energy thus 

 manifested by rains and rivers, winds and waves, is trans- 

 formed solar radiance. And in like manner, if asked whence 

 came the molar motion exhibited in the transfer of vast 

 masses of sea- water along definite lines, as in the Gulf Stream 

 and other marine currents, we may safely answer — what- 

 ever view we adopt as to the details of these movements — 

 that it was originally due to the heat which so rarefied this 

 water as to make it yield to the pressure of adjacent colder 

 and denser water. And this heat came to the earth in the 

 solar rays. Thus all movements of gaseous, liquid, and solid 

 matter upon the earth's surface, except volcanic and tidal 

 movements, are simply transformations of the heat which is 

 generated by the progressive integration of the sun's mass. 



But this is not the end of the matter. Our last sentence 

 implicitly included the phenomena of life among those due 

 to solar radiance, since the phenomena of life, whatever 

 else they may be, are certainly included among the complex 

 movements of gaseous, liquid, and solid matters, which occur 

 upon the earth's surface. Let us note some of the various 

 ways in which molecular motion, sent from the sun, is 

 metamorphosed into vital energy. 



The seed of a plant, buried in the damp earth, grows by 

 the integration of adjacent nutritive materials, but the energy 

 which effects this union consists in the solar undulations by 

 which the soil is warmed. Diminish, to a certain extent, 

 the daily supply of radiance, as in the long arctic and the 

 short temperate winters, and the seed will refuse to grow. 

 Though nutritive material may be at hand in abundance, 

 there is no molecular motion which the seed can absorb 

 When the seed grows and shoots up its delicate green stalk, 



