IC}2 HISTORY OF 



Pacific ocean, and the Indian ocean. Others have divided it dif- 

 fereiilly, and given ether names ; as the Frozen ocean, the Infe- 

 rior ocean, or the American ocean. But all these being arbi- 

 trary distinctions, and not of Nature's making, the naturalist may 

 consider them \vi:h indifference. 



In this vast receptacle, almost all the rivers of the earth ulti- 

 mately terminate ; nor do such great supplies seem to increase 

 its stores ; for it is neither apparently swollen by their tribute, 

 nor diminished by their failure ; it still continues the same. 

 Indeed, what is the quantity of water of all the rivers and lakes 

 in the world, compared to that contained in this great recep- 

 tacle ?" If we should offer to make a rude estimate, we shall 

 find that all the rivers in the world, flowing into the bed of the 

 sea, with a continuance of their present stores, would take up at 

 least eight hundred years to fill it to its present height. For, 

 supposing the sea to be eighty-five millions of square miles in 

 extent, and a quarter of a mile, upon an average, in depth, this, 

 upon calculation, will give about twenty-one millions of cubic 

 miles of water, as the contents of the whole ocean. Now, to 

 estimate the quantity of water which all the ris'ers supply, take 

 any one of them -, the Po, for instance, the quantity of whose 

 discharge into the sea is known to be one cubic mile of water in 

 twenty-six days. Now it will be found, upon a rude computa- 

 tion, from the quantity of ground the Po, with its mfluent 

 streams, covers, that all the rivers of the world furnish about 

 two thousand times that quantity of water. In the space of a 

 year, therefore, they will have discharged into the sea about 

 twenty-six thousand cubic miles of water ; and not till eight 

 hundred years will they have discharged as much water as is 

 contained in the sea at present. I have not troubled the reader 

 with the odd numbers, lest he should imagine I was giving pre- 

 cision to a subject that is incapable of it. 



Thus great is the assemblage of waters diffused round our 

 Iiabitable globe ; and yet, immeasurable as they seem, they are 

 mostly rendered subservient to the necessities and the conve- 

 niences of so little a being as man. Nevertheless, if it should 

 be asked whether they be made for him alone, the question is 

 not easily resolved. Some philosophers have perceived so much 



1 I5ulTi>n, vol. i'. p. 70. 



