Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/304

278 You feel a degree of lassitude unconquerable, which not even the sea-bathing, which everywhere else proves so salutary and renovating, can dispel. Except when in actual danger of ship-wreck, I never spent twelve more disagreeable days in the professional part of my life than in these calm latitudes. I crossed the line on the 17th of January, at eight a.m., in longitude 21° 20′, and soon found I had surmounted all the difficulties consequent to that event; that the breeze continued to freshen and draw-round to the south-south-east, bringing with it a clear sky and most heavenly temperature, renovating and refreshing beyond description. Nothing was now to be seen but cheerful countenances, exchanged as by enchantment from that sleepy sluggishness which had borne us all down for the last two weeks."

516. Subjects which at sea present themselves for contemplation.—One need not go to sea to perceive the grand work which the clouds perform in collecting moisture from the crystal vaults of the sky, in sprinkling it upon the fields, and making the hills glad with showers of rain. Winter and summer, "the clouds drop fatness upon the earth." This part of their office is obvious to all, and I do not propose to consider it now. But the sailor at sea observes phenomena and witnesses operations in the terrestrial economy which tell him that, in the beautiful and exquisite adjustments of the grand machinery of the atmosphere, the clouds have other important offices to perform besides those merely of dispensing showers, of producing the rains, and of weaving mantles of snow for the protection of our fields in winter. As important as are these offices, the philosophical mariner, as he changes his sky, is reminded that the clouds have commandments to fulfil, which, though less obvious, are not therefore the less benign in their influences, or the less worthy of his notice. He beholds them at work in moderating the extremes of heat and cold, and in mitigating climates. At one time they spread themselves out; they cover the earth as with a mantle; they prevent radiation from its crust, and keep it warm. At another time they interpose between it and the sun; they screen it from his scorching rays, and protect the tender plants from his heat, the land from the drought; or, like a garment, they overshadow the sea, defending its waters from the intense forces of evaporation. Having performed these offices for one place, they are evaporated and given up to the sunbeam and the winds again, to be borne on their wings away to other