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CURRENTS OF THE SEA. I35 
crystals. Admiral Smyth brought up bottom with his briny sam- 
ple of deep sea water (six hundred and seventy fathoms), but no 
salt crystals. 
The gallant admiral — appearing to withhold his assent both from 
Dr. WoUaston in his conclusions as to this under current, and 
from the geologist in his inferences as to the elFect of the barrier 
in the Straits — suggests the probability that, in sounding for the 
heavy specimen of sea water, he struck a brine spring. But the 
specimen, according to analysis, was of sea water, and how did a 
brine spring of sea water get under the sea but through the proc- 
ess of evaporation on the surface, or by parting with a portion of 
its fresh water in some other way ? 
If we admit the principle assumed by Sir Charles Lyel]^ that 
water from the great pools and basins of the sea can never ascend 
to cross the ridges which form these pools and basins, then the 
harmonies of the sea are gone, and we are forced to conclude they 
never existed. Every particle of water that sinks below a sub- 
marine ridge is, ipso facto, by his reasoning, stricken from the 
channels of circulation, to become thenceforward forever motion- 
less matter. The consequence would be " cold obstruction" in 
the depths of the sea, and a system of circulation between differ- 
ent seas of the waters only that float above the shoalest reefs and 
barriers. I do not believe in the existence of any such imperfect 
terrestrial mechanism, or in any such failures of design. To my 
mind, the proofs — the theoretical proofs — ^the proofs derived ex- 
clusively from reason and analogy — are as clear in favor of this 
under current from the Mediterranean as they were in favor of 
the existence of Leverrier's planet before it was seen through the 
telescope at Berlin. , 
Now suppose, as Sir Charles Lyell maintains, that none of these 
vast quantities of salt which this surface current takes into the 
Mediterranean find their way out again. It would not be difficult 
to show, even to the satisfaction of that eminent geologist, that 
this indraught conveys salt away from the Atlantic faster than all 
the /re^/i-water rivers empty fresh supplies of salt into the ocean. 
Now, besides this drain, vast quantities of salts are extracted from 
sea w^ater for madrepores, coral reefs, shell banks, and marl beds ; 
and by such reasoning as this, which is perfectly sound and good, 
we establish the existence of this under current, or else we are 
