Fiume

“ Like such a great river as that he knew so well and frequented all his days, his life flowed steadily and strongly, the brimming stream augmenting always, deepening and widening, the heavier current moving, at the end, more slowly but not through slackening of power, until, at the last turn, the majestic estuary opens and broadens, as, with no hurry of fretting waves, no straining through silted sandbanks, undiminished, the mighty mass of waters mingles with the sea. ”

“ Comes that river
From forth the sultry places down the south,
Rising far up in midmost realm of day,
Among black generations of strong men
With sun-baked skins. 'Tis possible, besides,
That a big bulk of piled sand may bar
His mouths against his onward waves, when sea,
Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;
Whereby the river's outlet were less free,
Likewise less headlong his descending floods.
It may be, too, that in this season rains
Are more abundant at its fountain head,
Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds
Then urge all clouds into those inland parts. ”

“ The river, always crystal-blue or crystal-green, largely increased in volume by the rains, forces itself through gates of brightly- coloured rock, by which its progress is repeatedly arrested, and rarely lingers for rest in all its sparkling, rushing course. ”

“ Off all the country round the rain is trickling away, carrying earth into the ditches and on into the stream, and the stream is carrying it down into the sea. Now think. After every shower of rain earth is carried off the land into the sea. ”

“ If the stream receives no water of another kind, or scarcely any, not only the rivers, but likewise the lakes which receive these waters, are of the same nature as the springs, and serve the same uses ”

“ On they ride, for rest and refreshment to themselves was not to be thought of till they have it for the animals. The river is gained! a broad, deep current of water, muddy like that of the Platte, supplies the moisture to the trees, whose tops ascend only a few feet above the desert level, and whose trunks rise from green meadows but little above the surface of the water. ”

“ The river scarcely ran at our passing it; when, all on a sudden, we heard a noise on the mountains above, louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides, upon this, flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done, than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. ”

“ At our feet a stream was struggling with the multitude of rude rocks, which Nature, in one of her primeval convulsions, had flung here and there in masses into its current; sometimes uniting into irregular ledges, over which the water swept with impetuosity;—sometimes standing insulated in the stream, and increasing the energies of the river by their resistance;—sometimes breaking forward from the bank, and giving a bolder effect to its romantic outline. ”

“ Low, flat, sea-coast land, pierced by rivers, presents a very similar appearance the world over, where river current and sea-tide are not hemmed in by lofty barriers. Over the low land the sea washes, and in channels down to the sea from the higher levels the river “rives” its way. Gradually, as it approaches the sea, the bed becomes more horizontal, and the earth suspended in the water is as gradually deposited in the bed of the channel. ”

“ A river flowing to the sea or emptying itself into an inland lake, carries its burden of gravel, sand, and mud, and sooner or later, as the rate of flow slackens, it deposits the materials in the river-bed or on the floor of the sea or lake. ”

“ Rivers considered as rain-gauges—the ten largest.—Rivers are the rain-gauges of nature. The volume of water annually discharged by any river into the sea expresses the total amount by which the precipitation upon the valley drained by such river exceeds the evaporation from the same valley during the year. There are but ten rivers that we shall treat as rain-gauges; and there are only ten in the world whose valleys include an area of more than 500,000 square miles. ”

“ Now, the power of this moving water is a mighty wide-spread agent of change in the physical condition of the globe. For wherever water is in motion over the surface of the land, whether it be a rippling stream, or a mountain torrent, or a majestic river, it is surely wearing away the channel through which it flows, and carrying along in its course particles of clay, or sand, or gravel. ”

“ Below us, as we stand, we can see a broad and sluggish body of water, in places widening into shallow lakes. On either side of this stream, vast forests extend in every direction as far as the horizon, bounded on one side by the distant ocean, clothing each hilly rise, and sending islets of matted trees and shrubs floating down the waters. ”

“ These waters at first descend upon the plains without any fixed course, but by degrees hollow out a bed for themselves; by their natural bent they run to the bottom of mountains, and penetrating or dissolving the land easiest to divide, they carry earth and sand away with them, cut deep channels in the plains, form themselves into rivers, and open a passage into the sea, which constantly receives as much water from the land rivers as it loses by evaporation. ”

“ Whether a river begins its life on a lake plain, as in the example just cited, or upon a coastal plain lifted from beneath the sea or on a spread of glacial drift left by the retreat of continental ice sheets, such as covers much of Canada and the northeastern parts of the United States, its infantile stage presents the same characteristic features,—a narrow and shallow valley, with undeveloped tributaries and undrained interstream areas. Ground water stands high, and, exuding in the undrained initial depressions, forms marshes and lakes. ”

“ Watched thy clear blue waters as they slowly pass by,
Reflecting true pictures of the clouds in the sky.
So deep is thy bottom and so broad is thy stream,
Thy volume is greater than thy looks make it seem,
Tho slow is thy current, great force there is in it,
Moving a million tons of water each minute.{120}
Many are the sources that provide the supply,
That keeps this great river from ever running dry,
The inflow and outflow do so nearly conform,
That the river’s level is very uniform. ”

“ When, therefore, the water rushing in descends to the place which we call the lower region, it flows through the earth into the streams there and fills them, just as men pump up water. But when again it leaves those regions and rushes hither, it again fills the rivers here, and these, when filled, flow through channels and through the earth, and having severally reached the several places to which they are journeying, they make seas, lakes, rivers, and fountains. ”

“ The sea may form hills and mountains in many different manners; first, by the transportations of earth, sand, and shells, from one place to another; secondly, by depositing sediments, consisting of small particles detached from the coasts and bottom, and which it might have transported from a considerable distance; and lastly, by sand, mud, and other articles, which the sea winds often drive against coasts, downs and hills may be produced, which the water forsaking, by degrees, become parts of the continent. ”

“ The river has done its stint, and appears not to flow, but lie at its length reflecting the light, and the haze over the woods is like the inaudible panting, or rather the gentle perspiration of resting nature, rising from a myriad of pores into the attenuated atmosphere. ”

“ When the Water comes to the Foot of those hollow Mountains, 'tis heated by the Sun-Beams, and rises in Vapours to the Roofs, which when collected like the Water of a boiling Pot against the Lid, form Drops, and those Drops, Streams which run out at the first Out-let they meet with, and form what we call Springs, as several Springs form a Brook, and several Brooks a River, which carries back to the Sea the Water that came from it, and by consequence only circulates it like the Blood in the Veins of a living Animal. ”

“ Thus, by tracing a river backwards, from its end to its real beginning, we come at length to the sun; for it is the sun that produces aqueous vapour, from which, as we have seen, clouds are formed, and it is from clouds that water falls to the earth to become the sources of rivers. [Pg 268]
There are, however, rivers which have sources somewhat different from those just mentioned. They do not begin by driblets on a hillside, nor can they be traced to a spring. Go, for example, to the mouth of the river Rhone, and trace it backwards. ”

“ The stream, at a vast height above him, is seen leaping from ledge to ledge,—sometimes lost, sometimes sparkling in sunshine, till it courses impetuously beneath the rock on which he is seated, and is lost in the deep unbroken obscurity of the forest. ”

“ Fresh water may, farther, be divided into atmospheric, which includes hail, rain, and snow-water, and also dew; stagnant, such as that of lakes, ponds, and marshes; and running, which comprehends spring, well, and river-water. ”

“ The water in the ground dissolves the rock or the loose earth into little particles so fine that the tiny roots, or root hairs, drink them up, and so the rock furnishes a part of the nourishment, or food, of plants.
"Without the water that the clouds bring no plant could grow. It gives life and growth to everything that lives, and then sinks deep into the earth. It comes out of the ground again in springs, and flows away in rivulets, brooks, creeks, and rivers—away, and away, back to the ocean again. ”

“ A large river may convey yellow or red mud into some part of the ocean, where it may be dispersed by a current over an area several hundred leagues in length, so as to pass from the tropics into the temperate zone. ”

“ At every step the traveler notices abundant streams of the purest water, gushing sometimes from the very tops of mountains, and it is in these thickly clustering springs that the great rivers of that wild labyrinth of high ridges and deep valleys find their abundant sources. ”

“ Stately and slow that river moves down to the bay, into which it empties its load. The rain that falls on hundreds of square miles of territory flows into the streams that feed this trunk. The little spring that is the headwater of the system is but one of many pockets in the hillsides that hold the water that soaks into the ground and give it out by slow degrees. Surface water after a rain flows quickly into the streams. It is the springs that hold back their supply and keep the rivers from running dry in hot weather. ”

“ A river that spreads out into the indeterminate earthform of a marsh is an effective barrier; but one that gathers waters into a natural basin and forms a lake retains the uniting power of a navigable stream and also, by the extension of its area and elimination of its current, approaches the nature of an enclosed sea. Mountain rivers, characterized by small volume and turbulent flow, first become navigable when they check their impetuosity and gather their store of water in some lake basin. ”

“ Geologic activity.—Of all geological agencies water is the most obvious and apparently the greatest, though its efficiency is conditioned upon the presence of the atmosphere, upon the relief of the land, and upon the radiant energy of the sun. Through the agency of rainfall, of surface streams, of underground waters, and of wave action, the hydrosphere is constantly modifying the surface of the lithosphere, while at the same time it is bearing into the various basins the wash of the land and depositing it in stratified beds. ”

“ The muddy waters of rivers seem indisposed to mingle with the salt waters of the sea, or rather the salt waters of the ocean turn the muddy waters on the one side or the other of the mouth of rivers, until they have deposited their mud, and then the clear new water cordially joins the older, briny ocean. ”

“ Streams bear their burden of gravel, sand, and mud into lakes and leave it there. (3) The winds blow dust and sand into the lakes, and in some places pile the sand up into dunes along the shores. (4) Animals of various sorts live in the lakes, and their shells and bones give rise to deposits comparable to the animal deposits in the sea. (5) Abundant plants grow in the shallow water about the borders of many ponds and lakes, and as they die, their substance accumulates on the bottom. (6) At the outlet the water is constantly lowering its channel. ”

“ The rainfall may be divided into three parts: the first DRIES UP, being discharged into the air by evaporation either directly from the soil or through vegetation; the second RUNS OFF over the surface to flood the streams; the third SOAKS IN the ground and is henceforth known as GROUND or UNDERGROUND WATER.
THE DESCENT OF GROUND WATER. Seeping through the mantle of waste, ground water soaks into the pores and crevices of the underlying rock. All rocks of the upper crust of the earth are more or less porous, and all drink in water. ”

“ The crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds of feet below. ”

“ Take one of those maps, leave all the land surface in blank to represent the original condition of things, and you will have a reticulated system of threading nerves, fibrous and ganglionic, of the lakes and water-courses, which seem to have been disposed as streams and basins respectively to renew and interchange their waters in vigorous and healthful circulation. The waters are generally clear and pure, save as the swelling freshets of the spring tear away the rich mould of their shores and tangle them with huge uprooted trees. ”