A similar phenomenon, on a still more grand and majestic scale, occurs near Huatulco, a small Mexican village on the coast of the Pacific. On sailing into the bay one hears a distant noise, which might be taken for the spouting of a gigantic whale, or the dying groans of a bull struck by the sharp steel of the matador, or the rolling of thunder. Anxious to know the cause, "It is the Buffadero," answer the boatmen, pointing to a fantastically-shaped rock towards which they are rowing. On approaching, a truly magnificent spectacle reveals itself; for a colossal fountain springs from an aperture in the rock to a height of 150 feet, and after having dissolved in myriads of gems, returns to the foaming element which gave it birth. This beautiful sight renews itself as often as the breakers rush against the rock, and must be of unequalled splendour when a tornado sweeps across the ocean and rolls its giant billows into the hollowed bosom of the cliff. CHAP. V. OCEAN CURRENTS. Causes of the Oceanic Currents.--The Equatorial Stream.--The Gulf Stream.--Its Influence on the Climate of the West European Coasts.--The Cold Peruvian Stream.--The Japanese Stream. Perpetual motion and change is the grand law, to which the whole of the created universe is subject, and immutable stability is nowhere to be found, but in the Eternal mind that rules and governs all things. The stars, which were supposed to be _fixed_ to the canopy of heaven, are restless wanderers through the illimitable regions of space. The hardest rocks melt away under the corroding influence of time, for the elements never cease gnawing at their surface, and dislocating the atoms of which they are composed. Our body appears to us unchanged since yesterday, and yet how many of the particles which formed its substance, have within these few short hours, been cast off and replaced by others. We fancy ourselves at rest, and yet a torrent of blood, propelled by an indefatigable heart, is constantly flowing through all our arteries and veins. A similar external appearance of tranquillity might deceive the superficial observer, when sailing over the vast expanse of ocean, at a time when the winds are asleep, and its surface is unruffled by a wave. But how great would be his error! For every atom of the boundless sea is constantly moving and changing its place; from the depth to the surface, or from the surface to the depth; from the frozen pole to the burning equator, or from the torrid zone to the arctic ocean; now rising in the air in the form of invisible vapours, and then again descending upon our fields in fertilising showers. The waters are, in fact, the greatest travellers on earth; they know all the secrets of the submarine world; climb the peaks of inaccessible mountains, shame the flight of the condor as he towers over the summit of the Andes, and penetrate deeper into the bowels of the earth than the miner has ever sunk his shaft.