54* Mr Stevenson on the Bed of the 
nitj of making near the entrance of the Frith of Forth. Nume- 
rous proofs of the sea being disturbed to a considerable depth 
have also occurred since the erection of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, 
situate upon a sunken rock in the sea, 12 miles off Arbroath, in 
F orfarshire. Some drift stoijes of large dimensions, measuring up- 
wards of 30 cubic feet, or more than two tons weight, have, 
during storms, been often thrown upon the rock from the deep 
water. These large boulder stones are so familiar to the light- 
keepers at this station, as to be by them termed travellers. It 
is therefore extremely probable, that a large portion of the de- 
bris is carried down with the drainage water of the higher coun- 
try, as before noticed, and ultimately washed out of the North 
Sea into the expanse of the ocean. 
The question which naturally arises as to the result of all this 
waste or transposition of the solid matters of a large portion of 
the globe, is to enquire what has become of the body of water 
displaced by this wasting process. Without attempting to go 
into all the minutim of this part of the subject, I shall here 
briefly observe, that there seems to exist (if I may be allowed 
so to express myself) a kind of compensating arrangement be- 
tween the solid or earthy particles of the globe in the one 
case, and the waters of the ocean in the other. Thus by the 
process of evaporation, and the universal application of wa- 
ter, which enters so largely, in its simple or chemical state, 
into the whole animate aiid inanimate creation, the surface of 
the ocean may be kept nearly at a uniform level. Pheno- 
mena of this description are, no doubt, difficult in their so- 
lution upon the great scale, being met by the process of de- 
composition.^ which resolves bodies into their constituent parts, 
and also by our theory of the atmosphere, by which its li- 
mits and operations are determined. But were we to ab- 
stract our attention from the more general view of the sub- 
ject, and confine our inquiries to the Gterman Ocean, the Baltic, 
the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, or to any other inland and 
circumscribed parts of the ocean, this difficulty seems to be les- 
sened. Indeed the probability is, and it is a pretty generally 
received opinion, that a greater quantity of water is actually ad- 
mitted at the Straits of Gibraltar and of Babelmandel, than flows 
out of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. We consider water. 
