It was necessary for the preservation of the world, that water should in this instance be subjected to a law different from that of other substances which change from fluid to solid. The wisdom and goodness of the great ARTIFICER of the world will manifest itself in this arrangement, if we consider what would have been the consequences had water been subject to the general law, and like other fluids, become specifically heavier by the loss of its caloric. In winter, when the atmosphere became reduced to 32°, the water on the surface of our rivers would have sunk as it froze; another sheet of water would have frozen immediately, and sunk also; the ultimate consequence of which would have been, that the beds of our rivers would have become repositories of immense masses of ice, which no subsequent summer could unbind; and the world would shortly have been converted into a frozen chaos. How admirable the wisdom, how skilful the contrivance, that by subjecting water to a law contrary to what is observed by other fluids, as it freezes it becomes specifically lighter, and, swimming upon the surface, performs an important service by preserving a vast body of caloric in the _subjacent_ fluid from the effects of the surrounding cold, ready to receive its own accustomed quantity on the first change of the atmosphere?[86] Owing to the distance of this globe from the sun, and to the vast mountains of ice at the poles, the atmosphere over a large portion of the earth is at times reduced to so low a temperature, that, if it were not for a wise provision of nature, all vegetable life must be destroyed. Caloric has always a tendency to equilibrium; therefore, if the temperature of the air be lowered, the earth cools in proportion: but when the atmosphere is reduced to 32°, the water which it held in solution becomes frozen, and precipitates in the form of snow on the earth, covering it as with a carpet, and thereby preventing the escape of that caloric which is necessary for the preservation of those families of vegetables that depend on it for their support and maturity. Be the air ever so cold, the ground, thus covered, is seldom reduced below 32°, but is maintained equably at that temperature for the purpose above mentioned.[87] Homer has described a shower of snow, and its extensive effects, in a fine strain of poetry. “In Winter’s bleak uncomfortable reign, A snowy inundation hides the plain: Jove stills the winds, and bids the skies to sleep; Then pours the silent tempest thick and deep: And first the mountain tops are covered o’er, Then the green fields, and then the sandy shore; Bent with the weight the nodding woods are seen, And one bright waste hides all the works of men: The circling seas alone, absorbing all, Drink the dissolving fleeces as they fall”--POPE.