The Ocean and Its Wonders by R. M. Ballantyne
1 What is the sea made of? Salt water, is the ready reply that rises naturally to every lip. But to this we add the question,—What is salt water? or, as there are many kinds of salt water, of what sort of salt water does the sea consist? 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.
2 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!
3 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 saltier than in the temperate or frigid zones. […] Here, as these substances cannot be evaporated, they would accumulate to such a degree as to render the ocean uninhabitable by living creatures. […]The salts of the sea, and other substances contained in it, are conveyed by the fresh-water streams that pour into it from all the continents of the world. […] The operations of the ocean are manifold. Besides forming a great reservoir, into which what may be termed the impurities of the land are conveyed, it is, as has been shown, the great laboratory of nature.
4 The saltiness of the sea rendering it more dense, necessarily renders it more buoyant, than fresh water. This is obviously a great advantage to man in the matter of commerce. A ship does not sink so deep in the sea as it does in a fresh-water lake; hence it can carry more cargo with greater facility. It is easier to swim in salt than in fresh water.
5 The only disadvantage to commerce in the saltness of the sea is the consequent unfitness of its water for drinking. Many and harrowing are the accounts… in which sailors have been reduced to the most terrible extremities for want of fresh water… Science… enabled us to overcome this disadvantage of saltiness.
6 By the process of distillation, men soon managed to procure enough water at least to save their lives. One captain of a ship, by accident, lost all his fresh water…He had no distilling apparatus on board. […] In this extremity, the captain’s inventive genius came to his aid. He happened to have on board an old iron pitch-pot, with a wooden cover. Using this as a boiler, a pipe made of a pewter plate, and a wooden cask as a receiver, he … filled the pot with sea water, put an ounce of soap to assist in purifying it, and placed it on the fire. When the pot began to boil, the steam passed through the pipe into the cask, where it was condensed into water, minus the saline particles, which …were left behind in the pitch-pot. In less than an hour a quart of fresh water was thus obtained; which, though not very palatable, was sufficiently good to relieve the thirst of the ship’s crew. Many ships are now regularly supplied with an apparatus for distilling sea water; and […] the men of our navy drink no other water than that which is distilled from the sea.
