ISBN: 9780217627405

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustra… Plus…

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...with pure and tranquil waters, whose mirror reflects the mountains that adorn their margin, the azure of the sky, and even the slightest cloud floating in the atmosphere that bends over them. But these basins, which here and there collect the living waters of the continents, are only the image, on a very small scale, of what the vast and deep basin of the oceans is for the whole of the waters of our planet. All the water-springs that furrow the continents tend toward this common reservoir. Gushing from the height of the table-lands, or the lofty summits of the mountains, they pour their waters first from fall to fall headlong down the rapid slopes; they traverse, at a more sober and measured pace, the long low plains leading to the ocean, into which, as we behold their slower and slower and more sluggish march, their waves seem unwillingly to enter, as if conscious that they were to be confounded together, and lose their existence there. Here, in truth, ends the ephemeral life of the rivers; their motion has ceased, they disappear in the immensity of that vast abyss whence their water had issued. We are, then, inclined to look upon the basin of the oceans as containing waters in a state of rest; for the cause which sets the river waters in motion exists no longer; the differences of level are annulled. Yet let us be cautious; all this may well be only a first appearance. The very mobility of water, which prevents it from reflecting permanent forms, and levels all inequalities, renders it also accessible to the slightest external influences, and several causes succeed in impressing upon this element, passive in the highest degree, the most varied motions. The winds raise the waves of the ocean by an action wholly mechanical, and produce only a... Arnold Guyot, Books, History, The Earth And Man; Lectures On Comparative Physical Geography In Its Relation To The History Of Mankind Books>History, General Books LLC<

ISBN: 9780217627405

NA Earth, Lectures, Comparative, Physical, Geography, History, General Books LLC