358 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



sibly look upon that phrase as mere rhetoric ; but it is of 

 strictly scientific sobriety ; and you "will admit it to be so, 

 on learning that the mighty ocean-currents mainly depend 

 on this said mollusc-shell. Strange, yet true. Were there 

 no secreting animals in the sea capable of removing from the 

 water its surplus lime, the stormy "winds might agitate its 

 surface, and rouse its waves like troops of roaring lions 

 shaking back their manes of spray ; but there would be no 

 stronii currents with beneficent effect : and in a little while 

 the ocean would become a hu£2;e salt-lake. 



Let us rest from our hot hammering, and painful stooping 

 under ledges, and let us enjoy a few minutes' repose on this 

 reef, solitary amid the waves, and distant from the shore. 

 Pleasant the breeze, pleasant the gentle cadence of the water 

 at our feet, pleasant the sight of that snowy mass of cloud 

 which lazily rolls landwards. It rose from the surface of this 

 brilliant, buoyant, volitant sea in airy bubbles of vapour, and 

 is now travelling towards those green cornfields over which 

 the lark is poised in melody. If the cloud should there meet 

 a current of cold air, it will drop gently down as rain. This 

 rain will make its way through the earth to ri\ailets and rivers, 

 till it finally returns once more to the parent-bed of ocean ; but 

 on its way it will have washed with it various salts, which it 

 ■will dissolve and carry to the sea, thus adding to the already 

 saturated sea-water an amount of solid matter such as would 

 impede its flow, were there no provision ready to restore the 

 equilibrium. For observe, the rain-cloud, as it rose by 

 evaporation from the sea, left behind it all the salts which 

 it contained, and these would make the rest of the water 



