92 
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
twenty-four thousand long, is the yearly business of this invisible 
machinery. What a powerful engine is the atmosphere ! and 
how nicely adjusted must be all the cogs, and wheels, and springs, 
and pinions of this exquisite piece of machinery, that it never wears 
out nor breaks down, nor fails to do its work at the right time 
and in the right way ! 
146. In his annual report to the Society {Transactions of the 
Bombay Geographical Society from May, 1849, to August, 1850, 
vol. ix.). Dr. Buist, the secretary, states, on the authority of Mr. 
Laidly, the evaporation at Calcutta to be "about fifteen feet an- 
nually ; that between the Cape and Calcutta it averages, in Octo- 
ber and November, nearly three fourths of an inch daily ; between 
10° and 20° in the Bay of Bengal, it was found to exceed an inch 
daily. Supposing this to be double the average throughout the 
year, we should," continues the doctor, " have eighteen feet of 
evaporation annually." 
147. If, in considering the direct observations upon the daily 
rate of evaporation in India, it be remembered that the seasons 
there are divided into wet and dry ; that in the dry season, evap- 
oration in the Indian Ocean, because of its high temperature, and 
also of the high temperature and dry state of the wind, probably 
goes on as rapidly as it does any where else in the world ; if, more- 
over, we remember that the regular trade-wind regions proper 
are, for the most part, rainless regions at sea; that evaporation is 
going on from them all the year round, we shall have reason to 
consider the estimate of sixteen feet annually for the trade-wind 
surface of the ocean not too high. 
148. We see the light beginning to break upon us, for we now 
begin to perceive why it is that the proportions between the land 
and water were made as we find them in nature. If there had 
been more water and less land, we should have had more rain, and 
vice versa ; and then climates would have been different from 
what they now are, and the inhabitants, animal or vegetable, 
would not have been as they are. And as they are, that wise 
Being who, in his kind providence, so watches over and regards 
the things of this world that he takes notice of the sparrow's fall, 
and numbers the very hairs of our head, doubtless designed them 
to be. 
The mind is delighted, and the imagination charmed, by con- 
