more clearly indicated. From these constant
and general movements result others variable and particular: removals of
earth, deposits at the bottom of water forming elevations like those
upon the earth's surface, currents which, following the direction of
these mountain ranges, shape them to corresponding angles; and rolling
in the midst of the waves, as waters upon the earth, are in truth the
rivers of the sea.

The air, too, lighter and more fluid than water, obeys many forces: the
distant action of sun and moon, the immediate action of the sea, that of
rarefying heat and of condensing cold, produce in it continual
agitations. The winds are its currents, driving before them and
collecting the clouds. They produce meteors; transport the humid vapors
of maritime beaches to the land surfaces of the continents; determine
the storms; distribute the fruitful rains and kindly dews; stir the sea;
agitate the mobile waters, arrest or hasten the currents; raise floods;
excite tempests. The angry sea rises toward heaven and breaks roaring
against immovable dikes, which it can neither destroy nor surmount.

The land elevated above sea-level is safe from these irruptions. Its
surface, enameled with flowers, adorned with ever fresh verdure, peopled
with thousands and thousands of differing species of animals, is a place
of repose; an abode of delights, where man, placed to aid nature,
dominates all other things, the only one who can know and admire. God
has made him spectator of the universe and witness of his marvels. He is
animated by a divine spark which renders him a participant in the divine
mysteries; and by whose light he thinks and reflects, sees and reads in
the book of the world as in a copy of divinity.

Nature is the exterior throne of God's glory. The man who studies and
contemplates it rises gradually towards the interior throne of
omniscience. Made to adore the Creator, he commands all the creatures.
Vassal of heaven, king of earth, which he ennobles and enriches, he
establishes order, harmony, and subordination among living beings. He
embellishes Nature itself; cultivates, extends, and refines it;
suppresses its thistles and brambles, and multiplies its grapes
and roses.

Look upon the solitary beaches and sad lands where man has never dwelt:
covered--or rather bristling--with thick black woods on all their rising
ground, stunted barkless trees, bent, twisted, falling from age; near
by, others even more numerous