54 THE YEAR. 



declination again gradually diminishes; and there is 

 the same uniformity of solar action as there was at 

 the commencement of the year, the same increased 

 action at the other equinox, and the same return of 

 tranquillity at the close. Thus if there were a uniform 

 surface, and no medium between that surface and the 

 sun, the philosophy of the seasons on the. globe would 

 be very simple. 



But independently altogether of the varied forms and 

 textures of the solid surface of the land, all of which have 

 their influence in proportion to their extent, and which 

 form the differences of the natural history of the year as 

 it is found in different countries, there are others which 

 have an action extending over the whole surface, or, at 

 least, the greater part of it; and without some attention 

 to these, the phenomena of the year at no one place 

 can be fully understood. Some of those actions are 

 merely mechanical, some are chemical, and in some 

 these are blended together, so that a field is opened to 

 human ingenuity which seems almost inexhaustible. 

 The fluids on or around the earth are the chief agents 

 that are concerned in them. Water, which in the 

 greater masses is put into motion by the attractive in- 

 fluence of the sun and moon, which is dissolved into 

 vapour by the action of the atmosphere, which is de- 

 composed by many natural operations, which is con- 

 gealed in the absence and thawed by the presence of 

 heat, which is drank up by the air at one time, and 

 poured down in rain or scattered in snow, at another ; 

 and which is continually flowing in brooks and rivers 

 by its own weight, is in itself a wonderful agent ; and 

 some notion may be formed of the extent of the uses to 



