THE ATMOSPHERIC OCEAN--ORDER IN ITS FLOW--OFFICES OF THE ATMOSPHERE--
DANGERS LESSENED BY SCIENCE--CURRENTS OF ATMOSPHERE--CAUSE OF WIND--TWO
GREAT CURRENTS--DISTURBING INFLUENCES--CALMS--VARIABLE WINDS--CAUSES
THEREOF--LOCAL CAUSES OF DISTURBANCE--GULF STREAM--INFLUENCE--THE WINDS
MAPPED OUT--A SUPPOSED CASE.
Fish are not the only creatures that live in this ocean. The human
inhabitants of Earth, dwell at the bottom of an ocean of air, which
encircles the globe. Fish, however, have the advantage of us, inasmuch
as they can float and dart about in their ocean, while we, like the
crabs, can only crawl about at the bottom of ours.
This atmospheric ocean is so closely connected with the sea, and
exercises upon it so constant, universal, and important an influence,
that to omit, in a work of this kind, very special reference to the
winds, would be almost as egregious an oversight as to ignore the waves.
Wind, or atmospheric air in motion, is the cause of storms, of waves, of
water-transport through the sky, and of an incalculable amount of varied
phenomena on land and sea. Without this great agent no visible motion
would ever take place in the sea. Its great currents, indeed, might
flow on (though even that is questionable), but its surface would never
present any other aspect than that of an unruffled sheet of clear glass.
The air, then, becomes in this place an appropriate subject of
consideration. The Voice of Ocean has something very emphatic to say
about the atmosphere.
In regard to its nature, it is sufficient to say that atmospheric air is
composed of two gases--oxygen and nitrogen. Like the sea, the
atmosphere is an ocean which flows, not in chaotic confusion, but in
regular, appointed courses; acting in obedience to the fixed, unvarying
laws of the Almighty, and having currents, counter-currents, and eddies
also, just like the watery ocean, which exercise a specific and salutary
influence where they exist.