Let us take a look at the Yangtsekiang--a Chinese river of special interest for British trade. It drains over six hundred and fifty thousand square miles of land; and each year it hands over to the Ocean more than one hundred and twenty-five cubic miles of water. See the Mississippi. More than a million square miles of American territory are drained by it; and its annual gift to the Ocean amounts, like that of the great Chinese river, to over one hundred and twenty-five cubic miles of water. Or once more--take the Amazon. By that mighty stream more than two million square miles of land are drained; and more than five hundred cubic miles of water are poured annually into the sea. So the Amazon presents to the Ocean in the course of a year what the Seine presents in the course of a century. It has been reckoned that “all the rivers” of Earth combined pour every year into the sea a mass of water equal to about six thousand five hundred cubic miles. This would suffice to fill a vast tank, one mile broad, one mile deep, reaching the whole way from the north of Scotland to the south of Africa. “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.” It does not overflow its limits. And long ago as King Solomon wrote these words, he was able to give the reason. “_Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again._” The ocean receives these generous gifts from the land, only to be generous in return. That which the ocean freely accepts she gives again, lavishly and royally. Enormous supplies of water are needed on land, and it is the work of the ocean to meet that need. Throughout the world, and especially within the tropics, a constant drying up of the sea-surface is going on. This passing away of visible water out of sight is, like countless other everyday events, very extraordinary; though we think nothing of it because of its familiarity. A tumbler of water is spilt upon a boarded floor. “Oh, never mind,” says a careless voice. “It will soon dry up.” Yes, of course it will; and who troubles himself to think what the “drying up” means? Particle by particle the spilt water will creep softly away, not as a liquid but as a vapour, into the atmosphere, there to float, hidden from sight, and to be carried hither and thither wherever the air may be moving. Had such a thing never been seen before, it would arouse the wonderment of every thoughtful mind in Europe. But miracles of daily occurrence cease to be miracles. Some few solids, such as camphor, have the same property of passing slowly out of sight into the air, though it is a much slower process with camphor than with water. Snow and ice also, when there is no thaw, dry off gradually. I have known a whole slight fall of snow disappear thus, without any thaw.