102 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



223. Botanists tell us that the constitution of this plant is such 

 as to require that, at a certain stage of its growth, the stalk should 

 bend, and the flower should bow its head, that an operation may 

 take place which is necessary in order that the herb should pro- 

 duce seed after its kind ; and that, after this fecundation, its veg- 

 etable health requires that it should lift its head again and stand 

 erect. Now, if the mass of the earth had been greater or less, 

 the force of gravity would have been different ; in that case, the 

 strength of fibre in the snow-drop, as it is, would have been too 

 much or too little ; the plant could not bow or raise its head at 

 the right time, fecundation could not take place, and its family 

 would have become extinct with the first individual that was 

 planted, because its " seed" would not have been "in itself," and 

 therefore it could not have /reproduced itself, and its creation would 

 have been a failure. 



224. Now, if we see such perfect adaptation, such exquisite 

 adjustment, in the case of one of the smallest flowers of the field, 

 how much more may we not expect " compensation" in the at- 

 mosphere and the ocean, upon the right adjustment and due per- 

 formance of which depends not only the life of that plant, but the 

 well-being of every individual that is found in the entire vegeta- 

 ble and animal kingdoms of the world ? 



225. When the east winds blow along the Atlantic coast for a 

 little while, they bring us air saturated with moisture from the 

 Gulf Stream, and we complain of the sultry, oppressive, heavy at- 

 mosphere ; the invalid grows worse, and the well man feels ill, 

 because, when he takes this atmosphere into his lungs, it is al- 

 ready so charged with moisture that it can not take up and carry 

 off that which encumbers his lungs, and which nature has caused 

 his blood to bring and leave there, that respiration may take up 

 and carry off. At other times the air is dry and hot ; he feels 

 that it is conveying off matter from the lungs too fast ; he real- 

 izes the idea that it is consuming him, and he calls the sensation 

 burning. 



226. Therefore, in considering the general laws which govern 

 the physical agents of the universe, and regulate them in the due 

 performance of their offices, I have felt myself constrained to set 

 out with the assumption that, if the atmosphere had had a greater 



