In commencing this little book we set out with the intention of rambling hither and thither, among things that relate to the sea, without regard to order. We have carried out our intention; and now, at the close of our task, find that the more we listen to the Ocean’s Voice, the more we find its tale to be interminable, though the reverse of uninteresting.

In these rambles we have sought to treat chiefly of those scientific facts relating to the sea and the atmospheric ocean, which are not so frequently made the subject of books for the young, as are the wild and daring deeds of man upon the surface of the mighty deep.

It is not sufficient that man should become acquainted with the doings of his fellows on the sea. This is but one branch of general knowledge, and a very secondary one compared with that infinitely higher branch which treats of the workings of the Almighty in the ocean; workings which render it what it is—not merely a means of commercial enterprise for man and a home for fish, but also a great purifier and revivifier of the earth and sweetener of the atmosphere. God is the great first cause of all that is and that operates in the universe. It were an act of presumption to inquire into what we may term the first acts of the Almighty’s power. But there is no presumption—on the contrary there is propriety, as well as the highest gratification of which the human mind is capable—in penetrating through the paths of knowledge up to that first series of second causes which circle like a glory round the fountain-head. We may not put the question, “How did God create all things out of nothing?” but, all things having been created, it is quite legitimate to inquire how the circles of their manifold operations are carried on, and in what respect the things that be do affect each other.

No book that has of late years issued from the press treats more eloquently and interestingly of such subjects of inquiry than that admirable work of Captain Maury of the United States Navy, entitled “The Physical Geography of the Sea.” Much of the substance of what we have written has been culled from the pages of that fascinating volume. But we have merely plucked one or two leaves, as it were, and presented them to our readers in the hope that they may be tempted by their fragrance to pluck the flower. The mysteries of the atmospheric and aqueous oceans are here treated of fully, yet so agreeably, that one is frequently apt to fancy one is perusing the pages of romance.

In our own little book we have been compelled to skim lightly, and, in many places, to pass over subjects of great interest.

As for other subjects connected with the sea, of which we may not treat, they are innumerable. Of the sea-weeds that clothe the bottom of the deep with the rich profusion and glowing colours of the gardens of earth—of the myriads of animalcules (besides those we have mentioned) that disport in its waters and fill the abyss with life and lambent fire—of the great whales and other huge creatures that revel in its depths and lash its waters in their terrible might—of these and a host of kindred subjects, our space forbids our saying more than that the Voice of Ocean has much to tell us in regard to them, and in regard to the provident care of their beneficent Creator.

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