HALF AN HOUR WITH THE WAVES. 



one cannot but recognise the arrangement as 

 wonderful. Certainly the force thus operating must 

 have come from somewhere, and been confined, like 

 the Genii of the " Arabian Nights," ever since life 

 began on our planet, in its present aqueous and 

 aerial slavery. Between these two elements of air 

 and water we may recognise a wonderful relation. 

 The denser ocean is influenced largely by the other 

 ocean of air which wraps round the globe. The 

 changes in the latter produced by heat and cold, 

 which we name breezes, winds, gales, or hurricanes, 

 according to their intensity, have the power of 

 gently rippling the surface of the sea, or of raising 

 it into mighty billows. In either case we can see 

 how important these disturbing forces are to the life 

 of the sea how they mechanically mix atmospheric 

 air with the water, and thus render it perpetually 

 fit to support the marvellous abundance of organic 

 forms which crowd the ocean, even to its minutest 

 drop. Without the winds agitating the surface, 

 the tides constantly mingling its waters, and its 

 great currents traversing warm and cold regions 

 like so many arteries, it would be literally impossible 

 for marine life to exist. These mechanical agencies 

 keep it fresh and pure ; and the principle of circula- 

 tion which prevails in the human body affords us no 

 bad illustration of the plan by which the waters of 

 the sea are kept in a state of eternal but beneficial 

 commotion. 



Of all these agencies at work, none is so powerful 



