man was called the microcosmos by the ancients, and surely the term was well chosen: for just as man is composed of earth, water, air and fire, so is the body of the earth. as man has bones as support and framework for flesh, so the earth has rocks as support for the soil; as man carries a lake of blood in which the lungs inflate and deflate in respiration, so the body of the earth has the ocean which waxes and wanes every six hours in a cosmic respiration; as the veins emanate from the lake of blood and are ramified throughout the human body, in the same way, the ocean fills the body of the earth with an infinity of veins of water.