numberof plitnoinena will be reconcilutl. When we have found, tried, and offered surh an one, we are entitled 

 to claim for it a respectful consideration at least, until we discover it leading us into some palpable absurdity ; 

 or until some other hypothe.sis be suggested which will account equally as well, but for a greater number of 

 phenomena. Then, as honest searchers after truth, we should be ready to give up the former, adopt the latter, 

 and to try it until some other belter than either of the two be offered. 



With this understanding, I venture to offer an hypothesis with regard to the effects of the salts or solid matter 

 of the sea upon the currents of the ocean, and to suggest that one of the purposes which in the Grand Uesio-n it 

 was probably intended to accomplish by having the sea salt, and not fresh, was to impart to its waters the 

 forces and the powers necessary to make their circulation complete. 



In the first place, we do but conjecture when we say, that there is a set of currents in the sea and a system of 

 circulation in the sea, by which its waters are conveyed from place to place, with regularity, certainly and order. 

 But this conjecture appears to be founded on reason, for if we take a sample of water which shall fairly represent 

 in the proportion of its constituents the average water of the Piicific ocean, and analyse it; — and if we do the 

 same by a similar sample from the Atlantic, we shall find the analysis of the one to resemble that of the other 

 as closely as though the two samples had been taken from the same bottle after having been well shaken. How 

 then shall we account for this, unless upon the supposition that sea water from one part of the woild is in the pro- 

 cess of time brought into contact and mixed up with sea water from all other parts of the world .'' Agents there- 

 fore, it would seem, are at work which shake up the waters of the sea as though they were in a bottle, and 

 which, in the course of time, mingle those that are in one part of the ocean with those that are in another as 

 thoroughly and as completely as it is possible for man to do by shaking them in a vessel of his own construction. 



This fact as to uniformity of components, appears to call for the h3'pothesis that sea water which to- 

 day is in any part of the ocean, will, in the process of time, be found in another part the most remote. It must 

 therefore be carried about by currents; and as those currents hiive their offices to perform in the terrestrial 

 economy, they probably do not flow by chance, but in obedience to physical laws ; they no doubt therefore 

 n.aintain the order and preserve the harmony which characterize every department of God's handy-work upon 

 the threshhold of which man has as yet been permitted to stand, to observe or to comprehend. 



And thus by a process of reasoning, which is perfectly philosophical, we are led still further to conjecture 

 that there are regular and certain, if not appointed channels, through which the water travels from one part of the 

 ocean to another, and that those channels belong to an arrangement which may make, and for ought we know to the 

 contrary, which does make the system of oceanic circulation as complete, as perfect, and as harmonious as is that 

 of the atmosphere or the blood. Every drop of walerin the sea is as obedient to law and order, asare the members of 

 the hea\ enly host in the remotest regions of space. For win n the morning stars sang together, " the waves also 

 li.'tt d up iheir voice " in the Almighty anthem ; and doubtless therefore, tlie harmony in the depths of the ocean 

 IS in lune with that which comes from the spheres above. We cannot doubt it. For were it not so, were there 

 no channels of circulation from one ocean to another, and if accordingly the waters of the Atlantic were confined 

 to the AtJnniii;, oriithc waters of the arms and seas of the Atlantic were confined to these arms and seas, and had 



