means to ends, and the machinery of springs and rivers!

With Thanksgiving approaching for those that celebrate it - I like to think of what William Buckland left us to think on (1830)

Quote :

In the whole machinery of springs and rivers, constructed hills and valleys, and the apparatus that is kept in action for their duration. Of never-failing fountains, as to supply the earth by constant evaporation.

So also in the adjustment of the relative quantities of sea and land, and the appointment of the atmosphere to be the vehicle of this wonderful and unceasing circulation; in thus separating these waters from their native salt, (which is of the highest utility to preserve the purity of the sea) and transmitting them in genial showers to scatter fertility over the earth - in all these we find such undeniable proofs of a nicely balanced adaption of means to ends!

James
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Earth is unique, it is different!

It has a mechanism that generates electricity that powers its nerve centers. It has a mechanism that wears down the surface through erosion to sculpture the landscape and bring refreshing soils to the fields. It has a mechanism for regrowth that rebuilds the mountains and the fields and replenishes the ground waters.

It has a mechanism for the exchange of angular momentum with the moon that was put in place to keep gravitational stresses to tolerable limits.

Were it all to stop, erosion would make a flat desert of the land, and the sea waters would be the dominating feature! William Buckland called it "means to ends."

Quote :

In the whole machinery of springs and rivers, constructed hills and valleys, and the apparatus that is kept in action for their duration. Of never-failing fountains, as to supply the earth by constant evaporation.

So also in the adjustment of the relative quantities of sea and land, and the appointment of the atmosphere to be the vehicle of this wonderful and unceasing circulation; in thus separating these waters from their native salt, (which is of the highest utility to preserve the purity of the sea) and transmitting them in genial showers to scatter fertility over the earth - in all these we find such undeniable proofs of a nicely balanced adaption of means to ends!

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/James
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