Page:The ocean and its wonders.djvu/26

 may be termed the impurities of the land are conveyed, it is, as has been shown, the great laboratory of Nature, where these are reconverted, and the general balance restored. But we cannot speak of these things without making passing reference to the operations of water, as that agent of which the ocean constitutes but a part.

Nothing in this world is ever lost or annihilated. As the ocean receives all the water that flows from the land, so it returns that water, fresh and pure, in the shape of vapour, to the skies; where, in the form of clouds, it is conveyed to those parts of the earth where its presence is most needed, and precipitated in the form of rain and dew, fertilizing the soil, replenishing rivers and lakes, penetrating the earth’s deep caverns; whence it bubbles up in the shape of springs, and, after having gladdened the heart of man by driving his mills and causing his food to grow, it finds its way again into the sea: and thus the good work goes on with ceaseless regularity.

Water beats upon the rocks of the until it pounds them into sand, or rolls them into pebbles and boulders. It also sweeps the rich soil from the mountains into the valleys. In the form of snow it clothes the surface of the temperate and frigid zones with a warm mantle, which preserves vegetable life from the killing frosts of winter. In the form of ice it splits asunder the granite