THE "WINDS. 65 



CHAP. VI. 



THE AERIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS. 



Movements of theWaters through Evaporation. — Origin of "Winds. — Trade-Winds. — 

 Culms. — Monsoons. — Typhoons. — Tornadoes. — Water-Spouts. — The Formation 

 of Atmospherical Precipitations.: — Dew — Its Origin. — Fog. — Clouds. — Eain. — 

 Snow. — Hail Sources. — The Quantities of Water which the Eivers pour into the 

 Ocean. — Glaciers and their Progress. — Icebergs. — Erratic Blocks. — Influence of 

 forests on the Formation and Eetention of Atmospherical Precipitations. — 

 Consequences of their excessive Destruction. — The Power of Man over Climate. 

 — How has it been used as yet ? 



Neither storms nor ocean-currents, nor ebb and flood, however 

 great their influence, cause such considerable movements of the 

 waters, or force them to wander so restlessly from place to place 

 as tbe silent and imperceptible action of the warming sunbeam. 

 In every zone evaporation is constantly active in impregnating 

 the atmosphere with moisture, but the chief seat of its power is 

 evidently in the equatorial regions, where the vertical rays of 

 the great parent of light and heat plunge, day after day, into 

 the bosom of ocean, and perpetually saturate' the burning air 

 with aqueous vapours. 



In this chapter I intend following these invisible agents of 

 fertility and life, as they lightly ascend from the tropical seas, 

 and accompanying them in their various transformations, until 

 they once more return to the bosom of their great parent. A 

 cursory view of the benefits they confer on the vegetable 

 and animal world, as they wander over the surface of the land, 

 will, I hope, agreeably occupy the reader, and serve to increase 

 his admiration for that deep and dark blue ocean without 

 which all organic life would soon be extinct upon earth. 



I begin with a few words on the winged carriers of marine ex- 

 halations, the winds, which, although now and then detrimental or 

 fatal to individuals by their violence, largely compensate for these 



