THE OCEAN AS THE RESERVOIR OF HEALTH 5 



have originally possessed upon leaving the American 

 Continent being softened and ameliorated by its 

 passage over the wide ocean, free from all malarial 

 exhalations, pure with a purity that only salt can give, 

 and fresh with a freshness only obtainable on a level 

 surface constantly in motion and free from the myriad 

 foulnesses and fcetors of the stagnant land. But the 

 wind does not work alone. It is aided by the vast 

 ocean current of the Gulf Stream, whose warm waters 

 steadily pursue their way unbiassed by tidal waves, 

 unaffected by cross-blowing occasional gales, and 

 sending upward continually into the bosom of the 

 attendant winds its fresh moisture, freed from saline 

 particles, but impregnated with that mysterious 

 electrical component ozone which is, without question, 

 an important constituent of life itself. 



Yet, lest the atmosphere over these islands should 

 become too humid, and our people lose their energy 

 by reason of constantly basking in a moist, equable 

 climate, enervating and unhealthful, there are divers 

 divagations from the direct eastward flow of the 

 general wind currents. Down from the icy regions 

 of the Arctic circle, edged by the bitter cold of the 

 eternal ice, comes the north wind and north-easter, 

 and our comfort-loving folk complain of the sudden 

 change, not knowing, or even caring to know, how 

 entirely good for them is the change; for while we 

 may know what is good for us, it seldom follows 

 that we seek that good, and when it is thrust upon 

 us, we are all too apt to murmur and mutter that if we 

 had been allowed to order things celestial they would 

 have been much more endurable. Possibly ; yet who 

 is there so mad that he would willingly give the 



