The Ocean and its Wonders | Page 2

similar manner. Let us touch here, and
there, and everywhere, on the wonders of the sea, and listen to such
notes of the Ocean's Voice as strike upon our ears most pleasantly.
CHAPTER TWO.
COMPOSITION OF THE SEA--ITS SALTS--POWER AND USES
OF WATER--ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF
SALTS--ANECDOTE--DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS--BROOKES
APPARATUS--IMPORTANCE OF THE SEARCH AFTER
TRUTH--ILLUSTRATIONS-- DISCOVERIES RESULTING FROM
DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the wonders connected with
and contained in the sea, we shall treat of the composition of the sea
itself and of its extent, depth, and bottom.
What is the sea made of? Salt water, is the ready reply that rises
naturally to every lip. But to this we add the question,--What is salt
water? or, as there are many kinds of salt water, of what sort of salt
water does the sea consist? To these queries we give the following
reply, which, we doubt not, will rather surprise some of our readers.
Fresh water, as most people are aware, is composed of two
gases--oxygen and hydrogen. Sea water is composed of the same gases,
with the addition of muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, sulphur,
copper, silex, potash, chlorine, iodine, bromine, ammonia, and silver.
What a dose! Let bathers think of it next time they swallow a gulp of
sea water.
Most of these substances, however, exist in comparatively small
quantity in the sea, with the exception of muriate of soda, or common
table salt; of which, as all bathers know from bitter experience, there is
a very considerable quantity. The quantity of silver contained in sea
water is very small indeed. Nevertheless, small though it be, the ocean
is so immense, that, it has been calculated, if all the silver in it were
collected, it would form a mass that would weigh about two hundred
million tons!
The salt of the ocean varies considerably in different parts. Near the
equator, the great heat carries up a larger proportion of water by
evaporation than in the more temperate regions; and thus, as salt is not
removed by evaporation, the ocean in the torrid zone is salter than in
the temperate or frigid zones.
The salts of the sea, and other substances contained in it, are conveyed
thither by the fresh-water streams that pour into it from all the continent
of the world. Maury, in his delightful work, "The Physical Geography
of the Sea," tells us that "water is Nature's great carrier. With its
currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone, and ice from the
frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicle 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 sea-conch 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
gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi; others from the
battle-fields 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 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 wonder-working 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,