# Physical Geography Of The Sea 1855/10

CHAPTER X. — ON THE GEOLOGICAL AGENCY OF THE WINDS.
To appreciate the Offices of the Winds and Waves, Nature must be regarded as a Whole, § 369. — Level of the Dead Sea, 370. — Evidences that at former Geological Periods more Rain fell than now falls upon the Dead Sea and other inland Basins, 371. — Where Vapor for the Rains in the Basin of the American Lakes comes from, 375. — The Effect produced by the Upheaval of Mountains across the course of vapor-bearing Winds, 376. — The Agencies by which the Drainage of Hydrographic Basins may be cut off from the Sea, 380. — Utah an Example, 382. — Effect of the Andes upon vapor-bearing Winds, 383. — Geological Age of the Andes and Dead Sea compared, 391. — Ranges of dry Countries and little Rain, 393. — Rain and Evaporation in the Mediterranean, 399. — Evaporation and Precipitation in the Caspian Sea equal, 404. — The Quantity of Moisture the Atmosphere keeps in Circulation, 407. — Where Vapor for the Rains that feed the Nile come from, 409. — Lake Titicaca, 420.
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369. PROPERLY to appreciate the various offices which the winds and the waves perform, we must regard nature as a whole, for all the departments thereof are intimately connected. If we attempt to study in one of them, we often find ourselves tracing clews which lead us off insensibly into others, and, before we are aware, we discover ourselves exploring the chambers of some other department.
The study of drift takes the geologist out to sea, and reminds him that a knowledge of waves, winds, and currents, of navigation and hydrography, are closely and intimately connected with his favorite pursuit.
The astronomer directs his telescope to the most remote star, or to the nearest planet in the sky, and makes an observation upon it. He can not reduce this observation, nor make any use of it, until he has availed himself of certain principles of optics; until he has consulted the thermometer, gauged the atmosphere, and considered the effect of heat in changing its powers of refraction. In order to adjust the pendulum of his clock to the right length, he has to measure the water of the sea and weigh the earth. He, too, must therefore go into the study of the tides; he must examine the earth’s crust, and consider the matter of which it is a
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composed, from pole to pole, circumference to centre; and in doing this, he finds himself, in his researches, right alongside of the navigator, the geologist, and the meteorologist, with a host of other good fellows, each one holding by the same thread, and following it up into the same labyrinth — all, it may be, with different objects in view, but nevertheless, each thread will be sure to lead them where there are stores of knowledge for all, and instruction for each one in particular. And thus, in undertaking to explore the physical geography of the sea, I have found myself standing side by side with the geologist on the land, and with him, far away from the sea-shore, engaged in considering some of the phenomena which the inland basins of the earth — those immense indentations on its surface that have no sea-drainage — present for contemplation and study.
370. Among the most interesting of these is that of the Dead Sea. Lieutenant Lynch, of the United States Navy, has run a level from that sea to the Mediterranean, and finds the former to be about one thousand three hundred feet below the general sea-level of the earth. In seeking to account for this great difference of water level, the geologist examines the neighboring region, and calls to his aid the forces of elevation and depression which are supposed to have resided in the neighborhood; he then points to them as the agents which did the work. Truly they are mighty agents, and they have diversified the surface of the earth with the most towering monuments of their power. But is it necessary to suppose that they resided in the vicinity of this region? May they not have come from the sea, and been, if not in this case, at least in the case of other inland basins, as fat removed as the other hemisphere? This is a question which I do not pretend to answer definitely. But the inquiry as to the geological agency of the winds in such cases is a question which my investigations have suggested. It has its seat in the sea, and therefore I propound it as one which, in accounting for the formation of this or that inland basin, is worthy, at least, of consideration.
371. Is there any evidence that the annual amount of precipitation upon the water-shed of the Dead Sea, at some former period, was greater than the annual amount of evaporation from it now is? If yea, from what part of the sea did the vapor that supplied the excess of that precipitation come, and what has cut off that supply? The mere elevation and depression of the lake basin (§ 370) would not cut it off.
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372. If we establish the fact that the Dead Sea at a former period did send a river to the ocean, we carry along with it the admission that when that sea overflowed into that river, then the water that fell from the clouds over the Dead Sea basin was more than the winds could convert into vapor and carry away again; the river carried off the excess to the ocean whence it came (§ 116).
373. In the basin of the Dead Sea, in the basin of the Caspian, of the Sea of Aral, and in the other inland basins of Asia, we are entitled to infer that the precipitation and evaporation are at this time exactly equal. Were it not so, the level of these seas would be rising or sinking. If the precipitation were in excess, these seas would be gradually becoming fuller; and if the evaporation were in excess, they would be gradually drying up; but observation does not show, nor history tell us, that either is the case. As far as we know, the level of these seas is as permanent as that of the ocean, and it is difficult to realize the existence of subterranean channels between them and the great ocean. Were there such a channel, the Dead Sea being the lower, it would be the recipient of ocean waters; and we can not conceive how it should be such a recipient without ultimately rising to the level of its feeder.
374. It may be that the question suggested by my researches has no bearing upon the Dead Sea; that local elevations and subsidences alone were concerned in placing the level of its waters where t is. But is it probable that, throughout all the geological periods, during all the changes which have taken place in the distribution of land and water surface over the earth, the winds, which in the general channels of circulation pass over the Dead Sea, have alone been unchanged? Throughout all ages, periods, and formations, is it probable that the winds have brought us just as much moisture to that sea as they now bring, and have just taken up as much water from it as they now carry off? Obviously and clearly not. The salt-beds, the water-marks, the geological formations, and other facts traced by Nature’s own hand upon the tablets of the rock — all indicate plainly enough that not only the Dead Sea, but the Caspian also, had upon them, in former periods, more abundant rains than they now have. Where did the vapor for those rains come from? and what has stopped the supply? Surely not the elevation or depression of the Dead Sea basin.
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375. My researches with regard to the winds have suggested the probability (§ 121) that the vapor which is condensed into rains for the lake valley, and which the St. Lawrence carries off to the Atlantic Ocean, is taken up by the southeast trade-winds of the Pacific Ocean. Suppose this to be the case, and that the winds which bring this vapor arrive with it in the lake country at a mean dew-point of 50°. This would make the southwest winds the rain winds for the lakes generally, as well as for the Mississippi Valley; they are also, speaking generally, the rain winds of Europe, and, I have no doubt, of extra-tropical Asia also.
376. Now suppose a certain mountain range, hundreds of miles to the southwest of the lakes, but across the path of these winds, were to be suddenly elevated, and its crest pushed up into the regions of snow, having a mean temperature of 30º Fahrenheit. The winds, in passing that range, would be subjected to a mean dew-point of 300; and, not meeting with any more evaporating surface between such range and the lakes (§ 125), they would have no longer any moisture to deposit at the supposed lake temperature of 50º; for they could not yield their moisture to any thing above 30º. Consequently, the amount of precipitation in the lake country would fall off; the winds which feed the lakes would cease to bring as much water as the lakes now give to the St. Lawrence. In such a case, that river and the Niagara would drain them to the level of their bed; evaporation would be increased by reason of the dryness of the atmosphere and the want of rain, and the lakes would sink to that level at which, as in the case of the Caspian Sea, the precipitation and evaporation would finally become equal.
377. There is a self-regulating principle that would bring about this equality; for as the water in the lakes becomes lower, the area of its surface would be diminished, and the amount of vapor taken from it would consequently become less and less as the surface was lowered, until the amount of water evaporated would become equal to the amount rained down again, precisely in the same way that the amount of water evaporated from the sea is exactly equal to the whole amount poured back into it by the rains, the fogs, and the dews.*
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Thus the great lakes of this continent would remain inland seas at a permanent level; the salt brought from the soil by the washings of the rivers and rains would cease to be taken off to the ocean as it now is; and finally, too, the great American lakes, in the process of ages, would become first brackish, and then briny.
378. Now suppose the water-basins which hold the lakes to be over a thousand fathoms (six thousand feet) deep. We know they are not more than four hundred and twenty feet deep; but suppose them to be six thousand feet deep. The process of evaporation, after the St. Lawrence had gone dry, might go on until one or two thousand feet or more were lost from the surface, and we should then have another instance of the level of an inland water-basin being far below the sea-level, as in the case of the Dead Sea; or it would become a rainless district, when the lakes themselves would go dry.
379. Or let us take another case for illustration. Corallines are at work about the Gulf Stream; they have built up the Florida Reefs on one side, and the Bahama Banks on the other. Suppose they should build up a dam across the Florida Pass, and obstruct the Gulf Stream; and that, in like manner, they were to connect Cuba with Yucatan, by damming up the Yucatan Pass, so that the waters of the Atlantic should cease to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. What should we have? The depth of the marine basin which holds the waters of that Gulf is, in the deepest part, about a mile. The officers of the United States ship Albany have run a line of deep-sea soundings from west to east across the Gulf; the greatest depth they reported was about six thousand feet. Subsequent experiments, however, induce the belief that the depth is not quite so great. We should therefore have, by stopping up the channels between the Gulf and the Atlantic, not a sea-level in the Gulf, but we should have a mean level between evaporation and precipitation. If the former were in excess, the level of the Gulf waters would sink down until the surface exposed to the air would be just sufficient to return to the atmosphere, as vapor, the amount of water discharged by the rivers — the Mississippi and others — into the Gulf. As the waters were lowered, the extent of evaporating surface would grow less and less, until Nature should establish the proper ratio between the ability of the air to take up and the capacity of the clouds to let down. Thus we might have a sea whose level would be much farther below the water-level of the ocean than is the Dead Sea.
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380. There is still another process, besides the two already alluded to, by which the drainage of these inland basins may, through the agency of the winds, have been cut off from the great salt seas, and that is by the elevation of continents from the bottom of the sea in distant regions of the earth, and the substitution caused thereby of dry land instead of water for the winds to blow upon.
381. Now suppose that a continent should rise up in that part of the ocean, wherever it may be, that supplies the clouds with the vapor that makes the rain for the hydrographic basin of the great American lakes. What would be the result? Why, surely, fewer clouds and less rain, which would involve a change of climate in the lake country; an increase of evaporation from it, because a decrease of precipitation upon it; and, consequently, a diminution of cloudy screens to protect the waters of the lakes from being sucked up by the rays of the sun; and consequently, too, there would follow a low stage for water-courses, and a lowering of the lake-level would ensue. So far, I have instanced these cases only hypothetically; but, both in regard to the hydrographical basins of the Mexican Gulf and American lakes, I have confined myself strictly to analogies. Mountain ranges have been upheaved across the course of the winds, and continents have been raised from the bottom of the sea; and, no doubt, the influence of such upheavals has been felt in remote regions by mneans of the winds, and the effects which a greater or less amount of moisture brought by them would produce.
382. In the case of the Salt Lake of Utah, we have an example of drainage that has been cut off, and an illustration of the process by which Nature equalizes the evaporation and precipitation. To do this, in this instance, she is salting up the basin which received the drainage of this inland water-shed. Here we have the appearance, I am told, of an old channel by which the water used to flow from this basin to the sea. Supposing there was such a time and such a water-course, the water returned through it to the ocean was the amount by which the precipitation used to exceed the evaporation over the whole extent of country drained through this now dry bed of a river.
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The winds have had something to do with this; they are the agents which used to bring more moisture from the sea to this water-shed than they took away; and they are the agents which now carry off from that valley more moisture than is brought to it, and which, therefore, are making a salt-bed of places that used to be covered by water. In like manner, there is evidence that the great American lakes formerly had a drainage with the Gulf of Mexico. Steamers have been actually known, in former years, and in times of freshets, to pass from the Mississippi River over into the lakes. At low water, the bed of a dry river can be traced between them. Now the Salt Lake of Utah is to the southward and westward of our northern lake basin; that is the quarter (§ 214) whence the rain winds have been supposed to come. May not the same cause which lessened the precipitation or increased the evaporation in the Salt Lake water-shed, have done the same for the water-shed of the great American system of lakes? If the mountains to the west — the Sierra Nevada, for instancestand higher now than they formerly did, and if the winds which fed the Salt Lake valley with precipitation had, as (§ 212) I suppose they have, to pass the summits of the mountains, it is easy to perceive why the winds should not convey as much vapor across them now as they did when the summit of the range was lower and not so cool.
383. The Andes, in the trade-wind region of South America, stand up so high, that the wind, in order to cross them, has to part with all its moisture (§ 133), and consequently there is, on the west side, a rainless region. Now suppose a range of such mountains as these to be elevated across the track of the winds which supply the lake country with rains; it is easy to perceive how the whole country watered by the vapor which such winds bring, would be converted into a rainless region. I have used these hypothetical cases to illustrate a position which any philosopher, who considers the geological agency of the winds, may with propriety consult, when he is told of an inland basin the water-level of which, it is evident, was once higher than it now is; and that position is that, though the evidences of a higher water-level be unmistakable and conclusive, it does not follow, therefore, that there has been a subsidence of the lake basin itself, or an upheaval of the water-shed drained by it.
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384. The cause which has produced this change in the water level, instead of being local and near, may be remote; it may have its seat in the obstructions to “ the winds in his circuits,” which have been interposed in some other quarter of the world, which obstructions may prevent the winds from taking up or from bearing off their wonted supplies of moisture for the region whose water-level has been lowered.
385. Having therefore, I hope, made clear the meaning of the question proposed, by showing the manner in which winds may become important geological agents, and having explained how the upheaving of a mountain range in one part of the world may, through the winds, bear upon the physical geography of the sea, affect climates, and produce geological phenomena in another, I return to the Dead Sea and the great inland basins of Asia, and ask, How far is it possible for the elevation of the South American continent, and the upheaval of its mountains, to have had any effect upon the water-level of those seas? There are indications (§ 374) that they all once had a higher water-level than they now have, and that formerly the amount of precipitation was greater than it now is; then what has become of the sources of vapor? What has diminished its supply? Its supply would be diminished (§ 381) by the substitution of dry land in those parts of the ocean which used to supply that vapor; or the quantity of vapor deposited in the hydrographical basins of those seas would have been lessened if a snow-capped range of mountains (§ 376) had been elevated across the path of these winds, between the places where they were supplied with vapor and these basins.
386. A chain of evidence which it would be difficult to set aside is contained in the chapters beginning severally at p. 66, 97, and 104, going to show that the vapor which supplies the extra-tropical regions of the north with rains comes, in all probability, from the trade-wind regions of the southern hemisphere.
387. Now if it be true that the trade-winds from that part of the world take up there the water which is to be rained in the extra-tropical north, the path ascribed to the southeast trades of Africa and America, after they descend and become the prevailing
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southwest winds of the northern hemisphere, should pass over a region of less precipitation generally than they would do if, while performing the office of southeast trades, they had blown over water instead of land. The southeast trade-winds, with their load of vapor, whether great or small, take, after ascending in the equatorial calms, a northeasterly direction; they continue to flow in the upper regions of the air in that direction until they cross the tropic of Cancer. The places of least rain, then, between this tropic and the pole, should be precisely those places which depend for their rains upon the vapor which the winds that blow over southeast trade-wind Africa and America convey.
388. Now, if we could trace the path of the winds through the extra-tropical regions of the northern hemisphere, we should be able to identify the track of these Andean winds by the foot-prints of the clouds; for the path of the winds which depend for their moisture upon such sources of supply as the dry land of Central South America and Africa can not lie through a country that is watered well.
389. It is a remarkable coincidence, at least, that the countries in the extra-tropical regions of the north that are situated to the northeast of the southeast trade-winds of South Africa and America — that these countries, over which theory makes these winds to blow, include all the great deserts of Asia, and the districts of least precipitation in Europe. A line from the Galapagos Islands through Florence in Italy, another from the mouth of the Amazon through Aleppo in Holy Land (Plate VII.), would, after passing the tropic of Cancer, mark upon the surface of the earth the route of these winds; this is that “lee country” (§ 137) which, if such be the system of atmospherical circulation, ought to be scantily supplied with rains. Now the hyetographic map of Europe, in Johnston’s beautiful Physical Atlas, places the region of least precipitation between these two lines (Plate VII.).
390. It would seem that Nature, as if to reclaim this “lee” land from the desert, had stationed by the way-side of these winds a succession of inland seas, to serve them as relays for supplying with moisture this thirsty air. There is the Mediterranean Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Sea of Aral, all of which are situated exactly in this direction, as though these sheets of water were designed, in the grand system of aqueous arrangements, to supply with fresh vapor, winds that had already left rain enough behind them to make an Amazon and an Oronoco.
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391. Now that there has been such an elevation of land out of the water, we infer from the fact that the Andes were once cov ered by the sea, for their tops are now crowned with the remains of marine animals. When they and their continent were submerged — admitting that Europe in general outline was then as it now is — it can not be supposed, if the circulation of vapor were then such as it is supposed now to be, that the climates of that part of the Old World which is under the lee of those mountains were then as scantily supplied with moisture as they now are. When the sea covered South America, the winds had nearly all the waters which now make the Amazon to bring away with them, and to distribute among the countries situated along the route (Plate VII.) ascribed to them.
392. If ever the Caspian Sea exposed a larger surface for evap oration than it now does — and no doubt it did; if the precipitation in that valley ever exceeded the evaporation from it, as it does in all valleys drained into the open sea, then there must have been a change of hygrometrical condition there. And admitting the vapor-springs for that valley to be situated in the direction supposed, the rising up of a continent from the bottom of the sea, or the upheaval of a range of mountains in certain parts of America, Africa, or Spain, across the route of the winds which brought the rain for the Caspian water-shed, might have been sufficient to rob them of the moisture which they were wont to carry away and precipitate upon this great inland basin. See how the Andes have made Atacama a desert, and of Western Peru a rainless country; these regions have been made rainless simply by the rising up of a mountain range between them and the vapor-springs in the ocean which feed with moisture the winds that blow over these now rainless regions.
393. That part of Asia, then, which is under the lee of southern trade-wind Africa, lies to the north of the tropic of Cancer, and between two lines, the one passing through Cape Palmas and Medina, the other through Aden and Delhi. Being extended to the equator, they will include that part of it which is crossed by the continental southeast trade-winds of Africa, after they have traversed the greatest extent of land surface (Plate VII.).
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394. The range which lies between the two lines that represent the course of the American winds with their vapors, and the two lines which represent the course of the African winds with their vapors, is the range which is under the lee of winds that have, for the most part, traversed water-surface, or the ocean, in their circuit as southeast trade-winds. But a bare inspection of Plate VII. will show that the southeast trade-winds which cross the equator between longitude 15º and 50º west, and which are supposed to blow over into this hemisphere between these two ranges, have traversed land as well as water; and the Trade-wind Chart* shows that it is precisely those winds which, in the summer and fall, are converted into southwest monsoons for supplying the whole extent of Guinea with rains to make rivers of. Those winds, therefore, it would seem, leave much of their moisture behind them, and pass along to their channels in the grand system of circulation, for the most part, as dry winds. Moreover, it is not to be supposed that the channels through which the winds blow that cross the equator at the several places named, are as sharply defined in nature as the lines suggested, or as Plate VII. would represent them to be.
395. The whole region of the extra-tropical Old World that is included within the ranges marked, is the region which has most land to windward of it in the southern hemisphere. Now it is a curious coincidence, at least, that all the great extra-tropical deserts of the earth, with those regions in Europe and Asia which have the least amount of precipitation upon them, should lie within this range. That they are situated under the lee of the southern continents, and have but little rain, may be a coincidence, I admit; but that these deserts of the Old World are placed where they are is no coincidence — no accident: they are placed where they are, and as they are, by design; and in being so placed, it was intended that they should subserve some grand purpose in the terrestrial economy. Let us see, therefore, if we can discover any other marks of that design — any of the purposes to be subserved by such an arrangement — and trace any connection between that arrangement and the supposition which I maintain as to the place where the winds that blow over those regions derive their vapors.
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396. It will be remarked at once that all the inland seas of Asia, and all those of Europe except the semi-freshwater gulfs of the north, are within this range. The Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian, all fall within it. And why are they planted there? Why are they arranged to the northeast and southwest under this lee, and in the very direction in which theory makes this breadth of thirsty winds to prevail? Clearly and obviously, one of the purposes in the divine economy was, that they might replenish with vapor the winds which are almost vaporless when they arrive at these regions in the general system of circulation. And why should these winds be almost vaporless? They are almost vaporless because their route, in the general system of circulation, is such, that they are not brought into contact with a water-surface from which the needful supplies of vapor are to be had; or, being obtained, the supplies have since been taken away by the cool tops of mountain ranges over which these winds have had to pass.
397. In the Mediterranean, the evaporation is greater than the precipitation. Upon the Red Sea there never falls a drop of rain; it is all evaporation. Are we not, therefore, entitled to regard the Red Sea as a xnake-weight, thrown in to regulate the proportion of cloud and sunshine, and to dispense rain to certain parts of the earth in due season and in proper quantities? Have we not, in these two facts, evidence conclusive that the winds which blow over these two seas come, for the most part, from a dry country — from regions which contain few or no pools to furnish supplies of vapor?
398. Indeed, so scantily supplied with vapor are the winds which pass inll the general channels of circulation over the water-shed and sea-basin of the Mediterranean, that they take up there more water as vapor than they deposit. But, throwing out of the question what is taken up from the surface of the Mediterranean itself, these winds deposit more water on the water-shed whose drainage leads into that sea than they take up from it again. The excess is to be found in the rivers which discharge into the Mediterranean; but so thirsty are the winds which blow across the bosom of that sea, that they not only take up again all the water that those rivers pour into it, but they are supposed by philosophers (§ 252) to create a demand for an immense current from the Atlantic to supply the waste.
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399. It is estimated that threes times as much water as the Mediterranean receives from its rivers is evaporated from its surface. This may be an over-estimate, but the fact that evaporation from it is in excess of the precipitation, is made obvious by the current which the Atlantic sends into it through the Straits of Gibraltar; and the difference, we may rest assured, whether it be much or little, is carried off to modify climate elsewhere — to refresh with showers and make fruitful some other part of the earth.
400. The great inland basin of Asia, in which are Aral and the Caspian Seas, is situated on the route which this hypothesis requires these thirsty winds from southeast trade-wind Africa and America to take; and so scant of vapor are these winds when they arrive in this basin, that they have no moisture to leave behind; just as much as they pour down they take up again and carry off. We know (§ 116) that the volume of water returned by the rivers, the rains, and the dews, into the whole ocean, is exactly equal to the volume which the whole ocean gives back to the atmosphere; as far as our knowledge extends, the level of each of these two seas is as permanent as that of the great ocean itself. Therefore, the volume of water discharged by rivers, the rains, and the dews, into these two seas, is exactly equal to the volume which these two seas give back as vapor to the atmosphere.
401. These winds, therefore, do not begin permanently to lay down their load of moisture, be it great or small, until they cross the Oural Mountains. On the steppes of Issam, after they have supplied the Amazon and the other great equatorial rivers of the south, we find them first beginning to lay down more moisture than they take up again. In the Obi, the Yenesi, and the Lena, is to be found the volume which contains the expression for the load of water which these winds have brought from the southern hemisphere, from the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea; for in these almost hyperborean river-basins do we find the first instance in which, throughout the entire range assigned these winds, they have, after supplying the Amazon, &c., left more water behind them than they have taken up again and carried off. The low temperatures of Siberian Asia are quite sufficient to extract from these winds the remnants of vapor which the cool mountain-tops and mighty rivers of the southern hemisphere have left in them.
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402. Here I may be permitted to pause, that I may call attention to another remarkable coincidence, and admire the marks of design, the beautiful and exquisite adjustments that we see here provided, to insure the perfect workings — of the great aqueous and atmospherical machine. This coincidence — may I not call it cause and effect? — is between the hygrometrical conditions of all the countries within, and the hygrometrical conditions of all the countries without, the range included within the lines which I have drawn (Plate VII.) to represent the route in the northern hemisphere of the southeast trade-winds after they have blown their course over the land in South Africa and America. Both to the right and left of this range are countries included between the same parallels in which it is, yet these countries all receive more water from the atmosphere than they give back to it again; they all have rivers running into the sea. On the one hand, there is in Europe the Rhine, the Elbe, and all the great rivers that empty into the Atlantic; on the other hand, there are in Asia the Ganges, and all the great rivers of China; and in North America, in the latitude of the Caspian Sea, is our great system of fresh-water lakes; all of these receive from the atmosphere immense volumes of water, and pour it back into the sea in streams the most magnificent.
403. It is remarkable that none of these copiously — supplied water-sheds have, to the southwest of them in the trade-wind regions of the southern hemisphere, any considerable body of land; they are, all of them, under the lee of evaporating surfaces, of ocean waters in the trade-wind regions of the south. Only those countries in the extra-tropical north which I have described as lying under the lee of trade-wind South America and Africa are scantily supplied with rains. Pray examine Plate VII. in this connection. It tends to confirm the views taken in Chapter V., p. 115.
404. The surface of the Caspian Sea is about equal to that of our lakes; in it, evaporation is just equal to the precipitation. Our lakes are between the same parallels, and about the same distance from the western coast of America that the Caspian Sea is from the western coast of Europe; and yet the waters discharged by the St. Lawrence give us an idea of how greatly the precipitation upon it is in excess of the evaporation. To windward of the lakes, and in the trade-wind regions of the southern hemisphere, is no land; but to windward of the Caspian Sea, and in the trade-wind region of the southern hemisphere, there is land. Therefore, supposing the course of the vapor-distributing winds to be such as I maintain it to be, ought they not to carry more water from the ocean to the American lakes than it is possible for them to carry from the land — from the interior of South Africa and America — to the valley of the Caspian Sea?
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405. In like manner (§ 228), extra-tropical New Holland and South Africa have each land — not water — to the windward of them in the trade-wind regions of the northern hemisphere, where, according to. this hypothesis, the vapor for their rains ought to be taken up: they are both countries of little rain; but extra-tropical South America has, in the trade-wind region to windward of it in the northern hemisphere, a great extent of ocean, and the amount of precipitation (§ 141) in extra-tropical South America is wonderful. The coincidence, therefore, is remarkable, that the countries in the extra-tropical regions of this hemisphere, which lie to the northeast of large districts of land in the trade-wind regions of the other hemisphere, should be scantily supplied with rains; and likewise, that those so situated in the extra-tropical south, with regard to land in the trade-wind region of the north, should be scantily supplied with rains. Having thus remarked upon the coincidence, let us turn to the evidences of design, and contemplate the beautiful harmony displayed in the arrangement of the land and water, as we find them along this conjectural “wind-road.” (Plate VII.)
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406. Those who admit design among terrestrial adaptations, or have studied the economy of cosmical arrangements, will not be loth to grant that by design the atmosphere keeps in circulation a certain amount of moisture; that the water of which this moisture is made is supplied by the aqueous surface of the earth, and that it is to be returned to the seas again through rivers and the process of precipitation; that a permanent increase or decrease of the quantity of water thus put and kept in circulation by the winds would be followed by a corresponding change of hygrometrical conditions, which would draw after it permanent changes of climate; and that permanent changes of climate would involve the ultimate well-being of myriads of organisms, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
407. The quantity of moisture that the atmosphere keeps in circulation is, no doubt, just that quantity which is best suited to the well-being, and most adapted to the proper development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms; and that quantity is dependent upon the arrangement and the proportions that we see in nature between the land and the water — between mountain and desert, river and sea. If the seas and evaporating surfaces were changed, and removed from the places they occupy to other places, the principal places of precipitation probably would also be changed: whole families of plants would wither and die for want of cloud and sunshine, dry and wet, in proper proportions and in due season; and, with the blight of plants, whole tribes of animals would also perish. Under such a chance arrangement, man would no longer be able to rely upon the early and the latter rain, or to count with certainty upon the rains being sent in due season for seed-time and harvest. And that the rain will be sent in due season, we are assured from on high; and when we recollect who it is that “sendeth” it, we feel the conviction strong within us that He that sendeth the rain has the winds for his messengers; and that they may do his bidding, the land and the sea were arranged, both as to position and relative proportions, where they are, and as they are.
408. It should be borne in mind that the southeast trade-winds, after they rise up at the equator (Plate I.), have to overleap the northeast trade-winds. Consequently, they do not touch the earth until near the tropic of Cancer (see the bearded arrows, Plate VII.)—more frequently to the north than to the south of it; but for a part of every year, the place where these vaulting southeast trades first strike the earth, after leaving the other hemisphere, is very near this tropic. On the equatorial side of it, be it remembered, the northeast trade-winds blow; on the polar side, what were the southeast trades, and what are now the prevailing southwesterly winds of our hemisphere, prevail. Now examine Plate VII., and it will be seen that the upper half of the Red Sea is north of the tropic of Cancer; the lower half is to the south of it; that the latter is within the northeast trade-wind region; the former, in the region where the southwest passage winds are the prevailing winds
409. The River Tigris is probably evaporated from the upper half of this sea by these winds; while the northeast trade-winds take up from the lower half those vapors which feed the Nile with rain, and which the clouds deliver to the cold demands of the Mountains of the Moon. Thus there are two “wind-roads” crossing this sea: to the windward of it, each road runs through a rainless region; to the leewardt there is, in each case, a river to cross.
PAGE 197 ON THE GEOLOGICAL AGENCY OF THE WINDS.
410. The Persian Gulf lies, for the most part, in the track of the southwest winds; to the windward of the Persian Gulf is a desert; to the leeward, the River Indus. This is the route by which theory would require the vapor from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to be conveyed; and this is the direction in which we find indications that it is conveyed. For to leeward do we find, in each case, a river, telling to us, by signs not to be mistaken, that it receives more water from the clouds than it gives back to the winds.
411. Is it not a curious circumstance, that the winds which travel the road suggested from the southern hemisphere should, when they touch the earth on the polar side of the tropic of Cancer, be so thirsty, more thirsty, much more, than those which travel on either side of their path, and which are supposed to have come from southern seas, not from southern lands?
412. The Mediterranean has to give those winds three times as much vapor as it receives from them (§ 399); the Red Sea gives them as much as they can take, and receives nothing back in return but a little dew (§ 238); the Persian Gulf also gives more than it receives. What becomes of the rest? Doubtless it is given to the winds, that they may bear it off to distant regions, and make lands fruitful, that but for these sources of supply would be almost rainless, if not entirely arid, waste, and barren.
413. These seas and arms of the ocean now present themselves to the mind as counterpoises in the great hygrometrical machinery of our planet. As sheets of water placed where they are, to balance the land in the trade-wind region of South America and South Africa, they now present themselves. When the foundations of the earth were laid, we know who it was that “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;” and hence we know also that they are arranged both according to proportion and to place.
414. Here, then, we see harmony in the winds, design in the mountains, order in the sea, arrangement in the dust, and form for the desert. Here are signs of beauty and works of grandeur; and we may now fancy that, in this exquisite system of adaptations and compensations, we can almost behold, in the Red and Mediterranean Seas, the very waters that were held in the hollow of the Almighty hand when he weighed the Andes and balanced the hills of Africa in his comprehensive scales.
415. In that great inland basin of Asia which holds the Caspian Sea, and embraces an area of one million and a half of geo graphical square miles, we see the water-surface so exquisitely adjusted that it is just sufficient, and no more, to return to the atmosphere as vapor exactly as much moisture as the atmosphere lends in rain to the rivers of that basin.
416. Thus we are entitled to regard (§ 390) the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and Persian Gulf as relays, distributed along the route of these thirsty winds from the continents of the other hemisphere, to supply them with vapors, or to restore to them that which they have left behind to feed the sources of the Amazon, the Niger, and t.he Congo. The hypothesis that the winds from South Africa and America do take the course through Europe and Asia which I have marked out for them (Plate VII.), is supported by so many coincidences, to say the least, that we are entitled to regard it as probably correct, until a train of coincidences as striking can be adduced to show that such is not the case.
417. Returning once more to a consideration of the geological agency of the winds in accounting for the depression of the Dead Sea, we now see the fact most strikingly brought out before us, that if the Straits of Gibraltar were to be barred up, so that no water could pass through them, we should have a great depression of water-level in the Mediterranean. Three times as much water is evaporated from that sea as is returned to it through the rivers. A portion of water evaporated from it is probably rained down and returned to it through the rivers; but, supposing it to be barred up, as the demand upon it for vapor would exceed the supply by rains and rivers, it would commence to dry up. As it sinks down, the area exposed for evaporation would decrease, and the supplies to the rivers would diminish, until finally there would be established between the evaporation and precipitation an equilibrium, as iir the Dead and Caspian Seas; but, for aught we know, the water-level of the Mediterranean might, before this equilibrium were attained, have to reach a stage far below that of the Dead Sea level. The Lake Tadjura is now in the act of attaining such an equilibrium. There are connected with it the remains of a channel by which the water ran into the sea; but the surface of the lake is now five hundred feet below the sea-level, and it is salting up. If not in the Dead Sea, do we not, in the valley of this lake, find outcropping some reason for the question, What have the winds had to do with the phenomena before us?
418. The winds, in this sense, are geological agents of great power. It is not impossible but that they may afford us the means of comparing, directly, geological events which have taken place in one hemisphere, with geological events in another: e.g., the tops of the Andes were once at the bottom of the sea. Which is the oldest formation, that of the Dead Sea or the Andes? If the former be the older, then the climate of the Dead Sea must have been hygrometrically very different from what it now is.
419. In regarding the winds as geological agents, we can no longer consider them as the type of instability. We should rather treat them in the light of ancient and faithful chroniclers, which, upon being rightly consulted, will reveal to us truths that Nature has written upon their wings in characters as legible and enduring as any with which she has ever engraved the history of geological events upon the tablet of the rock.
420. The waters of Lake Titicaca, which receives the drainage of the great inland basin of the Andes, are only brackish, not salt. Hence we may infer that this lake has not been standing long enough to become briny, like the waters of the Dead Sea; consequently, it belongs to a more recent period. On the other hand, it will also be in.eresting to hear that my friend, Captain Lynch, informs me that, in his exploration of the Dead Sea, he saw what he took to be the dry bed of a river that once flowed from it. And thus we have two more links, stout and strong, to add to the chain of circumstantial evidence going to sustain the testimony of this strange and fickle witness which I have called up from the sea to testify in this presence concerning the works of Nature, and to tell us which be the older-the Anies, watching the stars with their hoary heads, or the Dead Sea, sleeping upon its ancient beds of crystal salt.