Robert Michael Ballantyne

The Ocean and its Wonders Robert Michael Ballantyne

Fresh water, as most people are aware, is composed of two gases-oxygen and hydrogen. Sea water is composed of the same gases, with the addition of muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, sulphur, copper, silex, potash, chlorine, iodine, bromine, ammonia, and silver. What a dose! Let bathers think of it next time they swallow a gulp of sea water. Most of these substances, however, exist in comparatively small quantity in the sea, with the exception of muriate of soda, or common table salt; of which, as all bathers know from bitter experience, there is a very considerable quantity. The quantity of silver contained in sea water is very small indeed. Nevertheless, small though it be, the ocean is so immense, that, it has been calculated, if all the silver in it were collected, it would form a mass that would weigh about two hundred million tons! The salt of the ocean varies considerably in different parts. Near the equator, the great heat carries up a larger proportion of water by evaporation than in the more temperate regions; and thus, as salt is not removed by evaporation, the ocean in the torrid zone is salter than in the temperate or frigid zones.