Physical Geography of Hindostan. 351 



scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It sur- 

 rounds us on all sides, yet we see it not : it presses on us with 

 a load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our 

 bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us all, yet we do 

 not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the finest down — 

 more impalpable than the finest gossamer, — it leaves the 

 cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the slightest flower 

 that feeds on the dew it supplies ; yet it bears the fleets of 

 nations on its wings around the world, and crushes the most 

 refractory substances with its weight. When in motion, its 

 force is sufficient to level the most stately forests and stable 

 buildings with the earth — to raise the waters of the ocean 

 into ridges like mountains, and dash the strongest ships to 

 pieces like toys. It warms and cools by turns the earth and 

 the living creatures that inhabit it. It draws up vapours 

 from the sea and land, retains them dissolved in itself or 

 suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them down 

 again as rain or dew when they are required. It bends the 

 rays of the sun from their path to give us the twilight of 

 evening and of dawn — it disperses and refracts their various 

 tints to beautify the approach and the retreat of the orb of 

 day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us 

 and fail us at once — and at once remove us from midnight 

 darkness to the blaze of noon. We should have no twilight 

 to soften and beautify the landscape — no clouds to shade us 

 from the scorching heat, — but the bald earth as it revolved 

 on its axis would turn its tanned and weathered front to the 

 full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day. It affords the 

 gas which vivifies and warms our frames, and receives into 

 itself that which had been polluted by use, and is thrown off 

 as noxious. It feeds the flame of life exactly as it does that 

 of the fire — it is in both cases consumed, and affords the food 

 of consumption — in both cases it becomes combined with 

 charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and is removed by 

 it when this is over. «' It is only the girdling encircling air," 

 says a writer in the North British Review, " that flows above 

 and around all, that makes the whole world kin. The car- 

 bonic acid with which to-day our breathing fills the air, to- 

 morrow seeks its way round the world. The date-trees that 



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