Lieutenant Maury thus computes the effect of a single Inch of Rain
falling upon the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic includes an area of
twenty-five millions of square miles. Suppose an inch of rain to fall
upon only one-fifth of this vast expanse. It would weigh, says our
author, three hundred and sixty thousand millions of tons: and the salt
which, as water, it held in solution in the sea, and which, when that
water was taken up as vapour, was left behind to disturb equilibrium,
weighed sixteen millions more of tons, or nearly twice as much as all
the ships in the world could carry at a cargo each. It might fall in
an hour, or it might fall in a day; but, occupy what time it might
in falling, this rain is calculated to exert so much force--which is
inconceivably great--in disturbing the equilibrium of the ocean. If
all the water discharged by the Mississippi river during the year were
taken up in one mighty measure, and cast into the ocean at one effort,
it would not make a greater disturbance in the equilibrium of the
sea than would the fall of rain supposed. And yet so gentle are the
operations of nature, that movements so vast are unperceived.