182 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



rents ; and as these currents have 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, maintain 

 the order and preserve the harmony which characterize every de- 

 partment of God's handy-work, upon the tlireshold of which man 

 has as yet been permitted to stand, to observe, or to comprehend. 

 498- Nay, having reached this threshold, and taken a survey 

 of the surrounding ocean, we are ready to assert, with all the con- 

 fidence of knowledge, that the sea has a system of circulation for 

 its waters. We rest this assertion upon our faith in the physical 

 adaptations with which the sea is invested. Take, for example, the 

 coral islands, reefs, beds, and atolls with which the Pacific Ocean 

 is studded and garnished. They were built up of materials which 

 a certain kind of insect quarried from the sea water. The cur- 

 rents of the sea ministered to this little insect — they were its liod 

 carriers. When fresh supplies of solid matter were wanted for the 

 coral rock upon which the foundations of the Polynesian Islands 

 were laid, these hod carriers brought them in unfailing streams of 

 sea water, loaded with food and building materials for the coralline ; 

 the obedient currents thread the widest and the deepest seas. 

 They never fail to come at the right time, nor refuse to go ; for, 

 unless the currents of the sea were employed to carry off from 

 this insect the waters that have been emptied by it of their lime, 

 and to bring to it others charged with more, it is evident the lit- 

 tle creature would have perished for want of food long before its 

 task was half completed. But for currents, it would have been 

 impaled in a nook of the very drop of water in which it was 

 spawned ; for it would have soon secreted the lime contained in 

 this drop of water, and then, without the ministering aid of cur- 

 rents to bring it more, it would have perished for the want of food 

 for itself and materials for its edifice ; and thus, but for the benign 

 currents which took this exhausted water away, there we perceive 

 this emptied drop would have remained, not only as the grave of 

 the little architect, but as a monument in attestation of the shock- 

 ing monstrosity that there had been a failure in the sublime sys- 

 tem of terrestrial adaptations — that the sea had not been adapted 

 by its Creator to the well-being of all its inhabitants. Now we 

 do know that its adaptations are suited to all the wants of every 



