17 
enough annually from the ocean to cover the earth on the 
average five feet deep ; to transfer it from one zone to 
another, ... is one of the offices of the grand atmos- 
pherical machine. This water is evaporated principally 
from the torrid zone. Supposing it all to have come thence, 
we shall have encircling the earth a belt of ocean 3,000 
miles in breadth, from which this atmosphere evaporates 
a layer of Hi feet in depth annually; and to hoist up as high 
as the clouds, (convey polarly) and lower down again all the 
water in a lake 10 feet in depth, 11,000 miles broad and 
24,000 miles long, is the yearly business of this invisible 
machinery." Maury further observes: — "The heating sur- 
face on the north side of the Equator within the torrid zone, 
yielding the largest evaporation, is twice as extensive as it is 
on the south side." We may, therefore, fairly assume that 
one-sixth of the whole of the water actually raised from this 
evaporating area is conveyed thence by the polar air current, 
and that a large proportion falls, and is congealed, in the 
western segment of the Arctic regions. In 1807 statistics 
were furnished of one snow-storm in the United States. 
The cloud covered an area of 1,500 miles by 300. The 
snow avoraged one foot deep, and was estimated to weigh 
about five tons to the acre, or 3,200 tons to the square mile, or 
a grand total of 1,410,000,000 tons of snow. It must bo an 
unreflecting mind that could contemplate such causes of ac- 
cumulation without seeing that in course of centuries, if not 
conlhmmislij, a power or force must necessarily be evoked, con- 
trolling the position of the Earth as tilted or inclined on the 
plane of her orbit, — the extension of a radius, and deposit of 
dense material on its apex being mechanically capable 
of alteration of the centre of gravity of an equably poised 
sphere. Change of the Earth's centre of gravitation in- 
volves re-arrangement of her oceanic envelope, as regards 
the position of its surface level, over the whole area it 
occupies on the sphere. The sea recedes from some coasts 
to deepen upon others. This transference of volume 1 con- 
ceive to be the motive force raising the tide waves, being 
the naturally appointed mode of transmission of successive 
films of ocean surface (probably regulated as to their syn- 
chronism, or the maxima or minima of their elevation, by 
lunar attraction, but not necessarily caused thereby) from 
areas of redundancy, tore-adjust the equilibrium endangered 
by such change of centre of gravity. The circulatory move 
ments of the diurnal tide-flow, inflex and reflex, probably 
check subverting tendencies, which might precipitate a 
catastrophe, or secular geological convulsion. Every cause 
2 
