INTRQDUCTION. 17 
steam-ship, rushing to her destination without asking 
aid from wind or tide! 
The proportion which the sea bears to the land 
in extent of surface has been ascertained with to- 
lerable accuracy, by ¢arefully cutting out the one 
from the other, as represented on the gores of a 
large terrestrial globe, and weighing the two por- 
tions of paper separately in a very delicate balance. 
The ratio of the water to the land is found to be 
about 2% to 1: the surface of the former being 
about one hundred and forty-four millions of square 
miles, and that of the latter about fifty-two mil- 
lions. Vast, however; as is the sea, and mighty in its 
rage, it is restrained by the hand of Him that made 
it. Water was once the instrument of vengeance 
upon a guilty world, but he hath made a cove- 
nant with man, that never again shall the waters 
become a flood to destroy the earth. He “shut up 
the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had 
issued out of the womb; when He made the cloud 
the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swad- 
dling-band for it; and brake up for it His decreed 
place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hither- 
to shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall 
thy proud waves be stayed!”* Slight changes are, 
it is true, going on in the course of ages, in the 
relative positions of the land and sea, but these are 
minute in their extent and slow in their operation. 
By the sand and mud, which are continually brought 
down by the rivers and deposited in the sea, banks 
and points of land are formed and perpetually in- 
* Job xxxviii. 8-11. 
2 B2 
