THE VALUE OF STORMS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 820, 8 September 1870, Page 4

THE VALUE OF STORMS.

The results obtained during the late deep-sea dredging expeditions point out more clearly than perhaps any other results have ever done the wonderful value of the winds. Were it not for breezes, gales, and storms, the ocean would soon become stagnant, and all living things both in the ocean and on the land would speedily die out. Animal life is dependent on the proper supply of nitrogen in food, and oxygen in the gaseous state. The analyses of sea water taken from various depths during the late dredging expeditions show that both nitrogen and oxygen are diffused through the entire mass of oceanic waters, the one in the shape of protoplasm and the other as a gas intermixed with the water. The augmented percentage of carbonic acid in the stratum of water lying in contact with the deep-sea bed is attributable to the respiratory functions of the deep-sea fauna. They expire carbonic acid into the water and inspire oxygen from it, diminishing the amount of the latter gas every moment and increasing the former. Were there no compensating agency the fine oxygen in the water would soon be exhausted, and the result would be the death of all life in the ocean ; while the constantly increasing amount of carbonic acid in the water would tend to hasten the catastrophe. Here we perceive the value of the winds. The constant agitation of the surface of the ocean aerates the waters, anti the descending currents carry with them to the deepest depths the life supporting gas. The effect of agitating the surface water when in couract with air was strikingly shown in the results of two analyses of water taken abaft the paddles of the steamer after having been powerfully agitated by their revolution. One of these analyses gave a percentage of oxygen as high as 37T, and the other as high as 45-3 while the proportion of carbonic acid in the first was only 3’3, and in the second only 56. This percentage ol oxvgen was much higher than that given by an analysis of water taken from the bow of the ship. A perpetual calm would be fatal to life. Were it possible for the wind to cease, ail living things ia the ocean would die first, and then the putrid waters would soon so affect the atmosphere that all living things upon the laud, with the exception perhaps of a few of the lower orders of living creatures, would soon expire. Happily for us the ocean is never still, and “ the wind bloweth where it listeth.”