Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/290

264 most abundantly even now the moving creature that hath life, and doing it in obedience to that command.

493. Ditto, calcareous in the Pacific, silicious in the Atlantic.—In the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the calcareous matter seems to be in excess, for the microscopic shells there, as well as the conch and the coral, are built mostly of lime. In contemplating this round of compensations, the question may be asked, Where is the agent that regulates the supply of solid materials for the insects of the sea to build their edifices of? Answer: The rivers. They bring down, and pour into the sea continually, the pabulum which those organisms require. This amount again depends upon the quantity and power of the rains to wash out from the solid rock; and the rains depend upon the amount of vapour that the sea delivers to the winds, which, as Chapman's observations show, depends directly upon the salts of the sea.

494. The records of the sea and of revelation agree.—So far the two records agree, and the evidence is clear that the sea was salt when it received its command. Do they afford any testimony as to its condition previously? Let us examine:—On the second day of creation the waters were gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appeared. Before that period, therefore, there were no rivers, and consequently no washings of brine by mists, nor dew, nor rains for the valleys among the hills. The water covered the earth. This is the account of revelation; and the account which Nature has written, in her own peculiar characters, on the mountain and in the jolain, on the rock and in the sea, as to the early condition of our planet, indicates the same. The inscriptions on the geological column tell that there was a period when the solid parts of the earth's crust which now stand high in the air were covered by water. The geological evidence that it was so, with perhaps the exception of a solitary mountain peak here and there, is conclusive; and when we come to examine the fossil remains that are buried on the mountains and scattered over the plains, we have as much reason to say that the sea was salt when it covered or nearly covered the earth, as the naturalist, when he sees a skull or bone whitening on the wayside, has to say that it was once covered with flesh. Therefore we have reason for the conjecture that the sea was salt "in the beginning," when "the waters under heaven were gathered together under one place," and the dry land first appeared; for, go back as far as we may in the dim records which young Nature has left inscribed upon the