Page:The ocean and its wonders.djvu/25

 of its vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it by unknown paths to the most distant parts of the Earth. The materials of which the coral builds the island, and the its shell, are gathered by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys, in all latitudes. Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon in Africa, or out of the of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi; others from the  of Europe, or from the marble quarries of ancient Greece and Rome. The materials thus collected, and carried over falls and down rapids, are transported to the sea.”

Here, as these substances cannot be evaporated, they would accumulate to such a degree as to render the ocean uninhabitable by living creatures, had not God provided against this by the most beautiful compensation. He has filled the ocean with innumerable animals and marine plants, whose special duty it is to seize and make use of the substances thus swept from the land, and reconvert them into solids. We cannot form an adequate conception of the extent of the great work carried on continually in this way; but we see part of it in the chalk cliffs, the marl beds of the sea shore, and the coral islands of the South Seas,—of which last more particular notice shall be taken in a succeeding chapter.

The operations of the ocean are manifold. Besides forming a great reservoir, into which what