14 



The student may find an interest in calculating the 

 volumes of water from the larger rivers of the earth carrying 

 an ever constant supply of fresh water into the depths for the 

 balancing of the vaporised deficiencies. 



The vast volumes of water pouring daily into the ocean 

 may be illustrated by the three largest rivers — the Amazon 

 (the largest), the Congo, and the Mississippi. 



The Congo in its course of 2,500 miles accumulating a 

 mass of water equal to 2,500,000 cubic feet per second, being 

 ten miles wide at its mouth. The Amazon in its journey of 

 4,000 miles widens out as it meets the sea, to 200 miles. 

 The impetus of the flow from each river can be traced by the 

 discoloration of the ocean as far out as from two to three 

 hundred miles. 



Our own rivers, the Thames (or Broad Isis), and the 

 Severn, with their length of 210 to 250 miles, are modest 

 streams in comparison with the American and African giants. 

 The Mississippi, with its drainage of 982,000 square miles, 

 pours into the Gulf of Mexico, water, that if collected to- 

 gether, would make a sea of a mile depth, with a superficial 

 area of 620 square miles. This enormous flow is collected 

 from the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the 

 Mountains that skirt the Pacific Coast. 



These all with countless other rivers, surface and sub- 

 terranean, swell the masses of fresh water swallowed up by 

 the ocean waters which cover 143 millions of square miles. 

 The Pacific, 56 millions (40 per cent.) ; Atlantic, 30 millions 

 (20 per cent). 



At the recent British Association Meeting, it was stated 

 that in the creation, the waters were above the earth, form- 

 ing a canopy of cloud, which in the lapse of time divided, 

 one portion falling on the cooling globe, filling up the sub- 

 sidences, plains, and valleys which now form the abysmal 

 depths of the sea, the waters of the earth being separated 

 from the waters above the earth, " the firmament dividing 

 the waters which were under from the waters which were 

 above the firmament, and the dry land became the Earth, 

 and the gathering together of the waters the Seas/' 



