Basin

“ There is a marble basin in the middle of the grounds, filled with crystal water, in which gold and silver fish disport joyously beneath the shade of the overhanging fruit trees on one side, or, on the other, play with their glistening fins, in the brilliant flood of sunlight. ”

“ What we see immediately before us is a basin, it may be a quarter of a mile, it may be half a mile broad, and two miles long; a wild expanse of broken granite rocks and boulders strewn hap-hazard, some of them showing the red of the syenite and others black and polished and shining in the sun; a field of rocks, none of them high, of fantastic shapes; and through this field the river breaks in a hundred twisting passages and chutes, all apparently small, but the water in them is foaming and leaping and flashing white; and the air begins to be pervaded by the multitudinous roar of rapids. ”

“ But the occasion justified our eagerness. A smooth silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, with a hole at the bottom as in a washing-basin on board a steamer, stood before us brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapour, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground about the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica, like the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin. ”

“ The basin is filled with water, a charm is prepared and burned and the ashes mixed with the water. The reader of the spirits' decrees then stares into the basin and declares he sees and hears wonderful things belonging to another world. ”

“ The water is agitated in the basin, it boils up suddenly, subsides, the earth beneath our feet trembles and a mass of steaming water rises in the center of the basin to an elevation of fifteen feet and overflows the rim with a noisy splash. ”

“ It is a basin among the ledges, filled with quiet sea-water left by the retreat of the tide, half-floored with sandy mud, and its edges fringed with feathery seaweeds, corallines, and hydroids. Here is a capital home for the little folk of the sea, where there is always fresh clear water, but where only a part of the time do the surges pound, and then never with full force; furthermore, a wall of rocks protects the nook, and enemies can rarely enter to destroy the peaceful society. ”

“ For we of the Basin—however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain Pharo—at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as all true Basins should. ”

“ We are in a basin formed by rugged mountains whose many gorges are filled with immense masses of snow, in ridge and furrow, having the appearance of mighty rivers suddenly congealed in all the irregularity of their downward rush. ”

“ The spring rises in a hollow under the rock imperceptibly, and without bubble or sound. The fine sand of the shallow basin is undisturbed—no tiny water-volcano pushes up a dome of particles. Nor is there any crevice in the stone, but the basin is always full and always running over. ”

“ And another curiosity, which everybody goes to see, is called the Basin,—an exquisite little spot,—fit for the abode of a very angel. It is formed in the solid rock, and though twenty feet in depth, you can see a sixpence at the bottom,—it is so wonderfully clear. ”

“ It curves with deep, clear fulness into an upper rocky basin. It gushes so firm and urgent against its walls that its reflected edges are seen to be heaped higher than the unchecked slide of its mid-current. ”

“ Back of the granite barriers the river spread right and left, and then went out to sea in a deep and narrow stream, curiously free from ice. Indeed, there was but little ice in the main basin, and a kind of steam hung over it so that the Poor Boy was compelled and delighted to conclude (with the aid of his companions) that the river toward its mouth must be swollen by warm springs. ”

“ The basin type of topography calls into existence a set of relations quite distinct from either of those we have just described. Figure 34 represents the main facts. The rich and comparatively flat floor of the basin supports most of the people. ”

“ In all the valleys throughout the Great Basin are to be seen traces of water, and on the sides of the hills water-marks have been left that are visible at the distance of a mile, and can be traced for many miles. ”

“ Between the watersheds are hundreds2 of little streams and rivers. To get from the basin of one stream to that of another is so difficult, except along the coast, that each basin forms, as it were, a little world in itself. ”

“ The surface of each of our ocean floors exactly resembles that of a continent turned upside down. Taking the Atlantic as our simplest type, we may say that the surface of an ocean basin resembles that of a mighty trough or syncline, buckled up more or less centrally in a medial ridge, which is bounded by two long and deep marginal hollows, in the cores of which still deeper grooves sink to the profoundest depths. ”

“ Hold out one hand, palm uppermost, and straighten it as much as possible—the hollow in the palm is yet far too deep to represent with truth the natural rock basin. Soundings taken in lakes throughout the district all show the same thing—the basins are very shallow compared with their size and the height of the surrounding hills. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every brook and every creek is made up of water that falls near it, and rivers are made of the water poured into them by brooks and creeks. A river and all the streams that carry their water into it make a river system, and the land from which they drain the water is called the river basin. ”

“ By means of conduits cut in the living rock, they had managed to lead the water of the stream to a series of basins cut one below the other. The sketch we reproduce shows the lowest basin, which is close to the path. ”

“ When we examine in some detail the shape of the land surface, we readily perceive that the continuous down slopes are due to the cutting action of rivers. In the basin of a stream the waters act to wear away the original heights, filling them into the hollows, until the whole area has a continuous down grade to the point where the waters discharge into the ocean or perhaps into a lake. ”

“ Thus a small rapid stream with abundance of loose transportable material within its reach may fill up an extensive basin in a few centuries, while a large perennial trunk stream, flowing over clean, enduring pavements, though ordinarily a hundred times larger, may not fill a smaller basin in thousands of years. ”

“ OF the many characteristic features of the arid region of the far West known as the Great Basin, none attract the attention of the traveler more forcibly than the desert mud-plains that have been left by the evaporation of former lakes. ”

“ The size of the largest river basin of any country depends on the extent of the continent in which it is situated, its position in relation to the hilly regions in which rivers generally rise and the sea into which they flow, and the distance between the source and the outlet of the river draining it. ”

“ The tiers of snow-white basins, like steps of alabaster or Parian stone, are creations of nature never to be obliterated from the feeblest mind. (A friend suggests that they may be partially obliterated by a whisky cocktail.)
4. Each basin with its limpid contents, more delicate and iridescent than the shades of opal, appeals to the senses as a petrologic poem. As a background you have the battlements of a craggy mountain, looming up with awe-inspiring majesty, also reminding one of [Pg 291] natural creations which can never be obliterated from the feeblest mind. ”

“ Each basin being surrounded by a rim of rocks, constantly undergoing decomposition, the particles thus set free were either swept down the mountain-sides toward the central area by rain, or blown thither by air-currents, and, once entangled among the vegetation, could not be caried farther. ”

“ On the north an avenue, with twenty-two groups of three children, each group holding a marble basin from which a jet of water rises, slopes gently down to the Basin of Neptune, remarkable for its fine sculptures and abundant water. ”

“ For you must remember (says the plate) how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and round, and how the workmen smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood, representing the profile of a basin’s foot) he cleverly scraped and carved the ring which makes the base of any such basin, and then took the basin off the lathe like a doughy skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards (in what is called a green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to be finished and burnished with a steel burnisher? ”

“ The “Basin” is a basin only in the sense that it is all lower than the ranges enclosing it—the Mogollon, the Matitzal and the Sierra Ancha—but its whole triangular area is so cut up by ravines, arroyos, small stream beds and hills of very good height, that it may safely be pronounced one of the roughest spots on the globe. ”

“ It is not surprising that the water-system of two considerable rivers should furnish strong elements of contrast to those which exist in what is either a table-land or a basin, according as the attention of the investigators is struck by its elevation above the sea, or by its depressions forming salt-lakes—Dead Seas in the way of ethnology. ”

“ Can you find the man who had any knowledge of the Great Basin, as it is called, that believed there could be an ear of corn ripened in it? There is not that man on the earth, when you have excepted the people called the Latter-day Saints. ”

“ The coolies cleared away the shrubbery with their cleavers, and then by taking the left hand of one native while he held fast to another with his right, I was enabled to lean over its soft edge and obtain a complete view of the boiling water which partly covered its miry bottom. The stream which flows down into this basin rises on higher land to the north, and is cool until it comes into this basin. ”

“ It is not uncommon to find on hillsides, in many regions, little brooks whose beginnings are traceable to springs that gush out of the ground. The spring fills a little basin, the overflow of which is the brook. If the source of this spring could be traced underground, we might easily follow it along some loose rock formation until we come to a clay basin like the one described above. ”

“ Such examples, however, merely show that where a basin is so limited in size that the detritus is derived chiefly or exclusively from one formation, the prevailing rock will impart its colour and composition in a very decided manner to the loam; whereas, in the basin of a great river which has many tributaries, the loam will consist of a mixture of almost every variety of rock, and will therefore exhibit an average result nearly the same in all countries. ”

“ Having reached the bottom of the ladder, we crawl slowly and painfully through a broken, winding passage about 300 feet long; then see before us a basin of crystalline water; and how thirsty we are! This basin is 1,400 feet from the mouth of the cave, and about 450 feet below the earth's surface. Several hundred people during five months in every year depend entirely on that source for all the water they use. ”

“ Guided by the principle that great oceanic basins are to be considered rather as original marine areas that have been limited by the elevation of their boundaries, than as having been formed by the excavation of terrestrial areas, we have to inquire what evidence there is that the basin of the Atlantic has undergone any considerable change within a compara tively recent period. ”

“ The height of their situation is not connected with their magnitude; the smaller ones alone appear sometimes a little worn, but the large ones are not so at all. Those which belong to the basin of each river are found, upon examination, to be of the same nature as the mountains of the tops or sides of the high valleys in which the tributary streams of this river take their rise. ”

“ But some swift rivers, rolling mountains of fine earth, discharge themselves into deeply scooped gulfs or bays, and in such cases the deposit amounts, in the course of a few years, to a mass the transfer of which from the surface of a large basin, and its accumulation at a single point, may be supposed to produce other effects than those measurable by the sounding-line. ”

“ In the sheets of water which we find distributed over that and every other inhabitable inland basin, we see reservoirs or evaporating surfaces just sufficient for the supply of that degree of moisture which is best adapted to the well-being of the plants and animals that people such basins. ”

“ In mountainous desert regions, like the Great Basin of our Western States, the general tendency is for the rock materials wind-eroded from the mountains to be carried into the intermontane basins or valleys. ”

“ Experience has demonstrated the almost certainty of obtaining water, and in sufficient quantities, for agricultural and other purposes, in all valleys resting upon sedimentary formations, and having a basin-shaped structure, and where the different beds have a degree of uniformity or regularity in their position, and are of a texture that will admit the free percolation of water through the superior beds, and sufficiently firm to prevent its escape in those below. ”

“ River basins vary in extent according to the configuration of the country, ranging from the insignificant drainage-areas of streams rising on high ground very near the coast and flowing straight down into the sea, up to immense tracts of great continents, when rivers, rising on the slopes of mountain ranges far inland, have to traverse vast stretches of valleys and plains before reaching the ocean. ”