particles; joins the great army of the ocean’s currents; enters, perchance, the Gulf of Mexico, where it is turned back, and hastens along with the Gulf Stream, with all its natural warmth of character, to ameliorate the climate of Great Britain and the western shores of Europe. Having accomplished this benevolent work, it passes on, with some of its heat and vigour still remaining, to the arctic seas—where it is finally robbed of all its heat and nearly all its salt, and frozen into an icicle—there for many a long day to exert a chilling influence on the waters and the atmosphere around it. Being melted at last by the hot sun of the short arctic summer, it hurries back with the cold currents of the north to the genial regions of the equator, in search of its lost caloric and salt, taking in a full cargo of lime, &c., as it passes the mouths of rivers. Arrived at its old starting-point, our wanderer receives once more heat and salt to the full, parts with its lime, and at once hastens off on a new voyage of usefulness—to give out of its superabundance in exchange for the superabundance of others: thus quietly teaching man the lesson that the true principles of commerce were carried out in the depths of the sea ages before he discovered them and carried them into practice on its surface.
Perchance another fate awaits this adventurous particle of water. Mayhap, before it reaches the cold regions of the north, it is evaporated into the clouds, and descends upon the earth in fresh and re-
