Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/39

 Rh simply rise and fall, in the open ocean, to an elevation of two or three feet in all; along our shores, and up gulfs and estuaries, they sweep with the violence of a torrent, having a general range of ten or twelve feet—sometimes, as at Fundy, in America, at Brest and Milford Haven, in Europe, to a height of from forty to sixty feet. The tides sweep our shores from filth, and purify our rivers and inlets, affording to the residents of our islands and continents the benefits of a bi-diurnal ablution, and giving a health, and freshness, and purity wherever they appear. Obedient to the influence of bodies many millions of miles removed from them, their subjection is not the less complete; the vast volume of water, capable of crushing by its weight the most stupendous barriers that can be opposed to it, and bearing on its bosom the navies of the world, impetuously rushing against our shores, gently stops at a given line, and flows back again to its place when the word goes forth, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;' and that which no human power or contrivance could have repelled, returns at its appointed time so regularly and surely that the hour of its approach, and measure of its mass, may be predicted with unerring certainty centuries beforehand.

37. Hurricanes.—"The hurricanes which whirl with such fearful violence over the surface, raising the waters of the sea to enormous elevations, and submerging coasts and islands, attended as they are by the fearful attributes of thunder and deluges of rain, seem requisite to deflagrate the noxious gases which have accumulated, to commingle in one healthful mass the polluted elements of the air, and restore it fitted for the ends designed for it. We have hitherto dealt with the sea and air—the one the medium through which the commerce of all nations is transported, the other the means by which it is moved along—as themselves the great vehicles of moisture, heat, and cold throughout the regions of the world—the means of securing the interchange of these inestimable commodities, so that excess may be removed to where deficiency exists, deficiency substituted for excess, to the unbounded advantage of all. This group of illustrations has been selected because they are the most obvious, the most simple, and the most intelligible and beautiful that could be chosen.

38. Powers of the air.—"We have already said that the atmosphere forms a spherical shell, surrounding the earth to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing tenuity, as it