Chap. 104.] 
SALTOT.SS or THE SEA. 
129 
unjustly regarded as the star of our life\ This it is that 
replenishes the earth ^ ; when she approaches it, she fills all 
bodies, while, when she recedes, she empties them. From 
this cause it is that shell-fish grow with her increase^, and 
that those animals which are without blood more particularly 
experience her influence ; also, that the blood of man is * 
increased or diminished in proportion to the quantity of her 
light ; also that the leaves and vegetables generally, as I shall 
describe in the proper place'*, feel her influence, her power 
penetrating all things. 
CHAP. 103. (100.) THE POWEB OE THE SUI^". 
Pluids are dried up by the heat of the sun ; we have 
therefore regarded it as a masculine star, burning up and 
absorbing everything^. 
CHAP. 104. WHY THE SEA IS SALT. 
Hence it is that the widely-diffused sea is impregnated 
with the flavour of salt, in consequence of what is sweet and 
mild being evaporated from it, which the force of fire easily 
accomplishes ; while all the more acrid and thick matter is 
left behind ; on which account the water of the sea is less 
salt at some depth than at the surface. And this is a more 
true cause of the acrid flavour, than that the sea is the con- 
tinued perspiration of the land^, or that the greater part of 
the dry vapour is mixed with it, or that the nature of the 
earth is such that it impregnates the waters, and, as it were, 
^ " Spiritus sidus " Quod vitalem humorem ac spiritus in corpo- 
ribus rebusque omnibus varie temperet." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 433. 
2 f Terras saturet ; " as Alexandre interprets it, " succo impleat ; " 
Lemaire. 
2 This circumstance is alluded to by Cicero, De Divin. ii. 33, and by 
Horace, Sat. ii. 4, 30. It is difficult to conceive how an opinion so 
totally unfounded, and so easy to refute, should have obtained general 
credence. * Lib. xviii. chap. 75. 
^ Aristotle, Meteor, ii. 1, remarks, that as the sun is continually eva- 
porating the water of the sea, it must eventually be entirely dried up. 
But we have reason to beheve, that all the water wliich is evaporated by 
the solar heat, or any other natural process, is again deposited in the form 
of rain or dew. 
6 "Terrse sudor;" according to Aristotle, Meteor, ii. 4: this opinion • 
was adopted by some of the ancients. 
YOL. I. K 
