41 
GLACIERS AND ICE. 
BY W. F. BARRETT, 
ASSISTANT IN THE PHYSICAL LABORATORY OP THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 
Tf^HERE is perhaps nothing that excites the admiration 
X of the student of nature more than the stability which 
is seen throughout the universe ; and his admiration passes 
into emotion when a closer examination reveals the fact 
that permanency is upheld by incessant change. This un- 
resting repose is shown by the heavenly bodies, and is found 
among the atoms of matter ; for the actions of law, unlike 
our own, remain untrammelled by the element of size. 
Could we, therefore, take our stand in space, and be omni- 
scient spectators of the workings of the universe, we should 
find a thrill of ceaseless movement passing from limit to limit, 
and carried on from age to age. Streaming from every orb, 
and spreading far and wide, crossing and recrossing, without 
irregularity or jostling, there would be the wave-like 
motion of light and heat, keeping up most literally an 
unending strain of ethereal music. On the surfaces of the 
worlds rolling beneath us, such air and water as they possess 
would be seen pulsing from equator to pole, or locked and un- 
locked by changes in their nature, and all the while the very 
particles of both would be swinging to and fro in regular 
cadence. It is the perfect harmony which reigns in every 
part that sustains this eternal motion. There is no confusion, 
no noise ; the parts are “ fitly joined together/ 5 and work in 
concord ; moreover, by the juxtaposition and blending of their 
movements, they become subservient to the wants of man. 
The reverence to an unseen Ruler which these facts awaken, 
is not, indeed, denied, but confirmed 
of physical science. 
This wonderful roll of nature, which secures unity whilst 
abolishing uniformity, is strikingly manifest in the distillation 
of water which occurs on so grand a scale over the globe. 
Seas are lifted by the sun as vapour, and, condensing’, fall to 
the earth as rain or snow, thus forming our lakes and rivers, 
whose waters at last return to the ocean. But how, it may be 
asked, is this circulation maintained, when the congealed 
by every other teaching 
