160 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Socicty. 
whelming evidence to this effect, we venture to think that it must 
be received with extreme caution, as the Deus ew machind argument 
does not appeal to the scientific mind. 
Let us next glance at the “regulating agencies.” 
In addition to the reciprocal action of plants and animals, 
Schlesing maintains that the oceans are not only gigantic reservoirs 
of carbonic anhydride, but function also as automatic regulators of 
its amount in the atmosphere.1 He found that sea-water’ con- 
tained a constant amount of carbonic anhydride, and that practically 
the whole of it was present in the form of bicarbonates.* Having 
previously shown that pure water in contact with an earthy car- 
bonate, and an atmosphere containing carbonic anhydride, becomes 
charged with bicarbonate—the amount of the latter varying accord- 
ing to a definite law—he proved that when a neutral sodium salt, 
chalk, and magnesia, are added to water, the amount of bicarbonate 
also increases with the quantity of carbonic anhydride in the 
atmosphere; and that although this quantity may differ from 
that observed in the previous case, a condition of equilibrium is 
nevertheless reached between it and the tension of the carbonic 
anhydride. 
‘““This state tends to occur incessantly in sea-water, which for 
thousands of years has been in contact with the earthy carbonates 
at its bottom, its shores, and with the silt washed down by rivers 
1«Compt. Rend.,”’ 90 [1880], p. 1410. 2 That of the English Channel. 
3 The probable regulating effect of water in removing from the atmosphere the 
carbonic anhydride evolved from volcanic and subterranean sources, the combustion of 
petroleum, &c., so as to maintain the state of equilibrium necessary for the welfare of 
animals and plants, was pointed out by Peligot in 1855 (Annales de Chimie et de Phys., 
[3] 44 [1855], p. 257), ina paper which does not appear to have received the attention it 
deserves. Peligot was led to form his theory on the subject from the relatively high 
proportion of carbonic anhydride he found in solution in the waters of the Seine. Rain- 
water, he says, according to Bunsen’s calculations, should contain a fairly high propor- 
tion of carbonic anhydride; the gases it is capable of dissolving from the atmosphere 
at 0° C. containing 2°92 per cent. of that body. Now rain-water, Peligot goes on to 
argue, on coming into contact with the soil, dissolves a further quantity of carbonic 
anhydride from the ground air, together with carbonates from the soil itself; so that 
eventually all the dissolved carbonic anhydride exists in the form of bicarbonates, and 
these latter make their way eventually into the ocean. As to the fate of the carbonic 
anhydride thus continually introduced into sea-water, he remarks, that in default of 
direct observation it is impossible to say whether it accumulates, or remains in constant 
quantity under the influence of of sub-marine life, or by its absorption by the alkaline 
elements of rocks in process of disintegration. 
