5^ Mr Stevenson on the Bed of the 
also for the surplus waters produced during storms which affect 
the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. It is also obvious that this 
water-way must remain nearly the same, and admit a con- 
stant quantity ; or, to speak more correctly, by allowing these 
inlets to follow the general law, they must be enlarged by 
the waste or wearing of their sides, in a ratio perhaps great- 
er than the silting up of the bottom in those particular parts, 
while the interior and central portions of the German Ocean 
are continually acquiring additional quantities of debris, along 
with the drainage water of the widely surrounding countries. 
If therefore the same, or a greater quantity of tidal and sur- 
plus waters continue to be admitted from ,the Atlantic and 
Arctic Seas into this great basin, Avhere the process of deposi- 
tion is constantly going forward, it is evident that the surface 
of the German Ocean must be elevated in a temporary and pro- 
portionate degree, and hence the production of those wasting 
and destructive effects which are every where observable upon 
its shores. 
This reasoning is also applicable, in a greater or less degree, 
to all parts of the world ; for as the same cause every where 
exists, the same effects, when narrowly examined, must every 
where be produced. In the Southern or Pacific Ocean, we 
have wonderful examples of great masses of land formed by 
madrepores and extensive coral banks, which in time assume all 
the characteristic features of islands. These occupy consider- 
able portions of the watery bed of the ocean, and displace cor- 
responding portions of the fluid. Immense quantities of mud 
are also said to be deposited in the Yellow Sea of China, in the 
great deltas formed at the mouths of the Ganges, the Plate, the 
Amazons, the Missisippi, the St Lawrence, the Nile, the Rhine, 
and other large rivers, whose joint operation both at the surface 
and bottom of the ocean, are continually carrying forward the 
same great process of displacing the waters of the ocean ; for it 
matters not to this question whether the debris of the higher 
country which is carried down by the rains and rivers, or is oc- 
casioned by the direct waste produced by the ocean itself on the 
margin of the land, be deposited at the bottom or surface of the 
ocean, it must still be allowed to displace an equal or greater 
