THE ocean is one of the grandest spectacles which nature presents

to the human eye. Its size, its perpetual motion, its saltness, its various productions, and its general utility to man, all claim our attention: accordingly, it has been the subject of philosophical research from the remotest period. "As the earth is full of the riches of Jehovah, so is the great and wide sea, wherein are things innumerable, both small and great beasts: there go the ships: there is that leviathan (whale) whom thou hast made to play therein. These all wait upon thee: that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That which thou givest them they gather thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good." Such were the reflections of the Hebrew monarch, when he contemplated the works of Jehovah in the deep.

The great naturalist, Buffon, supposed the land and sea to be nearly equal upon the surface of the globe; but in this he was evidently mistaken, for whoever looks over any accurate map of the world, will see that the ocean is greatly superior, in extent, to the earth. Buffon calculated, indeed, upon the existence of a vast southern continent; but the voyages of Captain Cook have demonstrated, that the south pole is destitute of land. The proportion of water to land has been reckoned as three to one: but we doubt whether this is giving to the ocean its due extent: four to one seems to us to be nearer the existing fact. This immense body of waters is known to be diffused round both the old and new continent to the south; and it is highly probable that they surround them to the north, but the ice in those regions has stopped our inquiries. The ocean indeed is one extensive sheet of water, and no one part of it is divided from the rest, yet geographers have distinguished it by different VOL. IV. R

names; as the Atlantic or Western Ocean; this divides Europe and Africa from America, and is about three thousand miles in width. The Pacific Ocean, or South Sea; this is ten thousand miles over, and divides America from Asia. The Indian Ocean, which divides the East Indies from Africa, and is about three thousand miles wide. There are many other smaller divisions, which, as we are not writing upor geography, we shall not mention.

Almost all the rivers of the earth terminate in the sea, but so vast is this general receptacle of waters, that it is not apparently increased by their tribute, nor diminished by their failure: it still continues the same. Indeed, what is the quantity of water in all the rivers and lakes in the world compared to the ocean? Buffon makes an estimate of their comparitive contents, which greatly shews their disparity. He supposes the sea to be, on an average, a quarter of a mile in depth, and reckons it eighty five millions of square miles in extent. This measurement will produce above twenty one millions of cubic miles of water; vast and prodigious indeed! And yet this is far short of fa&t; for Buffon did not think the sea to be so large as it really is. The river Po, which is a thousand feet broad and ten feet deep at its mouth, and runs at the rate of four miles an hour, will take twenty-six days to discharge one cubit mile of water. From the quantity of ground which the Po, with all its influent streams, covers, he supposes that all the rivers in the world furnish about two thousand times that quantity of water. In the space

of a year, therefore, they will have discharged into the sea above twenty six thousand cubic miles of water: so that it requires eight hundred years before they have discharged as much water as the sea at present contains! How sublime is that image of the prophet, who describes Jehovah as holding the ocean in the hollow of his hand!

Various and opposite have been the opinions of philosophers concerning the original size of the sea. Some have contended that the whole earth was at first covered with water, except one single mountain; and that the sea had been gradually decreasing and the land growing ever since. According to these, the time may arrive when the earth will become one vast dry and parched desart; of which Arabia Deserta is only a faint type. They have recourse to the supposed vegetative nature of stone to convince us that the quantity of earth is continually increasing, and consequently, that the surface of the sea is diminishing in extent. They assert, also, that all that quantity of moisture, which is imbibed by plants, is lost to the general mass of waters, being converted into earth by the putrefaction of vegetables. They bring forward facts of the sea having left its ancient shores, of bays and harbours being choked up, of towns and cities that once were famous seaports being now miles, or even leagues, within land; even many mountains, say they, give evident proof of having been in a submarine state.

Thus would they persuade us that the moisture of the globe is perpetually lessening, that though it may be a benefit to mankind in a certain state of its progress, yet that the latter generations of men will be gradually parched and scorched to death!

On the other hand it is asserted that the waters are always increasing and the land diminishing. The height of the mountains, say they, is continually lessening; exposed to the violence of every storm, the hardest rocks must at last give way and tumble down. The rivers are continually sweeping along with them particles of earth which they deposit at the bottom of the sea. Both the depth of the ocean, then, and the height of the dry land must be always decreasing; the waters, therefore, unless a part of them were annihiliated, spread over a great extent of surface in proportion as these causes operate. This reasoning they confirm by facts. In the reign of Augustus the isle of Wight was a part of Britain, so that the natives crossed over to it, at low water, with cart loads of tin; yet that island is at present separated from Britain by a' channel more than half a mile wide. The Godwin sands were once the fruitful estate of Earl Godwin. Nor are the incroachments of the sea confined to Britain, but are observable equally in other countries; from hence they conclude that at some distant period the whole earth will be inundated.

Happily for mankind, all this is only to be feared by the speculative philosopher, who sits in his closet and weaves systems which nature disowns. We deny not the facts which are brought forward by either party; but we assert that their application is wrong; for though we fully grant that the sea recedes from some shores, and incroaches on others, yet this is owing to local causes, and rather proves that the land and water, in a long course of ages, retain nearly their former dimensions. Can any proof be given that the height of the mountains is decreasing? Are the Alps or the Apennines, or Taurus, or Caucasus, less lofty now then they were two thousand years ago? A French philosopher, M. Gensanne, pretends that the Pyrenean mountains become an inch lower every ten years. But, according to his own calculation, it would require a million of years to level these mountains with the plain, though they should continue to decrease at the same rate; and other philosopherss tell us that even this rate is constantly diminishing!

No doubt but many mountains have suffered in their height and size, from a variety of causes; the rain also washes down particles of earth froin them; and storms, and frosts, and earthquakes, have destroyed some of the hardest rocks. But the effects produced by these causes are small indeed, and hardly perceptible upon the large scale of things. Nature is so formed by its great author, as to guard continually against such effects as might overturn the established system. Mountains are formed of the most durable materials; and where they are covered with earth, it is bound together by a thick and firm matting of grass, and thus secured from the rains, and should accident deprive it of this covering, care is taken immediately to supply the defect. For even should the earth be swept away from the surface of the rock, nature has still such recourses left as to restore things to their former state. Many kinds of moss seem to be formed for that purpose: they take root upon the bare rock, and furnish as they decay a sufficient bed for several of the hardy mountain plants.

These perish in their turn, and others succeed them. The roots of the plants bind fast the earth as it accumulates, more plants spring up and spread wider, till, by degrees, the whole surface is covered with a firm coat of grass. Even the rain hastens the process, not only by its moisture, but by communicating a certain portion of earth, which is always contained in rain water.

As to the vegetation of stone, an argument advanced by the philosophers who contend for the decrease of the water, it is, we believe, an idea that is now given up by all parties. The conversion of water into earth, has also shared the same fate, because it is unsupported by experiment, and contrary to every thing that we know either about earth or water.

Immeasureable as the waters of the ocean seem, yet they are mostly rendered subservient to the necessities and conveniences of so little a being as man. The question has been asked whether they were made for man alone? Unimportant as this inquiry is, yet philosophers have arranged themselves on each side. The sea, say some of them, contains a multitude of animals, but a small part of them are known to man, the rest were therefore made for their own benefit, and not for man. Others observe that every thing with which man is acquainted in the sea, is brought under his dominion, or in some manner conducive to his service and that therefore the sea was made solely for his use.

It is, perhaps, a selfish idea, that God has made nothing but for the immediate use of man. Animal enjoyment is the gift of God, and in order to the exercise of this in the lower ranks of creatures it is not necessary that man should exist: nay his existence is an evident abridgment of the happiness of other creatures, who have more liberty and enjoyment where his empire is not known. It is enough that the Deity has endowed us with abilities to turn every thing to our own advantage; even the great and wide sea itself. He has made these things perhaps for other uses; but he has given us faculties to convert them to our own. Whether the world was made immediately for our use or not, it is evident that we were made to enjoy it, by the powers with which we are furnished to subject it to our service. Perhaps this is all that is meant by the grant in Gen. i. 28.

Man is therefore the lord of all this sublunary creation; the savage beast, the poisonous serpent, with all the untameable and rebellious offspring of nature, are destroyed in the contest, or driven at a distance from his habitation. The extensive and tempestuous ocean, instead of limiting or dividing his power, only serves to assist his industry, and enlarge the sphere of his enjoyments. Its billows, and its monsters, instead of presenting a scene of terror, only call up the courage, and exercise the invention, of this little intrepid being. Dangers, indeed, there are upon the deep, storms and tempests, currents and calms, may be fatal to him, but to such an extent do his abilities and courage reach, that he generally passes them in safety: and, alas! the greatest dangers which he now fears upon the deep, are from his fellow

men.

When we consider man in an uncivilized state, there is but little of the habitable globe that seems made for him. But when we consider him as accumulating the experience of ages, in commanding the earth, there is no part of it but what submits to his controul, and subserves to his pleasure. What a poor contemptible being is the untutored naked Indian, standing on the beach of the ocean, and trembling at its tumults! How incapable is he of traversing its vast surface, or converting its tides and currents to his service. He cannot say, Behold an element made for my enjoyment. He considers it as an angry Deity, and deprecates its wrath. But it is very different when he has exercised his mental powers, when he has learned to find his own superiority. It is then that his dignity as a rational creature begins to appear, and that the great. Creator is justly praised for having been mindful of man, for having given him the earth for his habitation and the sea for an inheritance.

No doubt but the first attempts of man upon the ocean were short and cautious, and probably were also deemed as presumptuous as the daring fights of our modern aerial adventurers. Whether the science of aerostation will ever be cultivated so as to be of equal benefit to man as navigation has been, remains yet to be proved: though there are not wanting some men of science who are very ardent in their expectations on this head. If Mr. Blanchard perform his intended voyage from France to America in safety, it will no doubt bring air balloons greatly into fashion.

Some have contended that men received the first hint of navigation from Noah's Ark. That the ark gave ideas upon the subject which men had not before may be freely granted; but to suppose that men had never used a boat to cross a river, or a narrow arm of the sea, during the antideluvian age, is hardly probable.

The power which man has obtained over the ocean, was at first enjoyed in common; and none pretended to an exclusive right in that element where all seemed intruders. The sea, therefore, was open to all till the time of the emperor Justinian, in the sixth century, about which period the imperial grants vested the sole right of fishing in the neighbouring sea to those who inhabited the coasts. The Thracian Bosphorus was the first that was thus appropriated: and from that time to this it has been the struggle of most of the mar time powers of Europe to obtain exclusive property in this element. The republic of Venice used to claim the Adriatic. The Danes are counted to be in possession of the Baltic. The French and English long contested the dominion of the channel, which has been adjudged to the English by a long train of naval success; hence this triumphant nation has claimed a sovereign dominion over the ocean in general.

It is owing to our dependance upon the sea, and to our commerce there that we are so well acquainted with its extent and figure. The bays, gulphs, currents, and shallows of the ocean are in many places more examined and better known than the provinces and kingdoms of the earth itself. The hope of acquiring wealth by commerce has carried man to much greater lengths than the desire of gaining information would have