Cold water

“ The warmer the atmosphere, the greater its capacity to hold moisture. The heated, thirsty air of the tropics drinks up the water of the ocean, and bears it away to the colder regions, where, through condensation by cold, it becomes visible as a cloud ”

“ What am I indeed but a muddied mass swamped with water, cold to the very heart, cold as the straw which covers us, cold as the trees on which each leaf rustles and shivers, cold as the very earth of the fields, which little by little is dissolving beneath the flooding rains? ”

“ For the vehemency of the heat of the drop causes such hidden motions and bubbles in the cold Water, that some parts of the Water bear more forcibly against one part then against another, and consequently do more suddenly cool those parts to which they are contiguous. ”

“ You will then perceive, as the weather grows warmer or colder, that the air contracts itself into a narrower space in cold weather and dilates in the warm, which will be exhibited by the rising of the water as the air contracts itself, and its depression as the air dilates. The sensibility of the air with regard to heat or cold is so delicate and exquisite, that it far exceeds the human touch, so that a ray of sunshine, the heat of the breath, and much more, that of the hand placed on the top of the tube, immediately causes an evident depression of the water. ”

“ The water absorbs heat during the summer, which it slowly gives off on the approach of cold weather, warming the atmosphere in its vicinity, and preventing the occurrence of early frosts in the fall along the shore-border from five to ten miles wide. ”

“ In shallow water near the shore, your feet at once detect the presence of springs in the bank emptying in, by the sudden coldness of the water, and there, if you are thirsty, you dig a little well in the sand with your hands, and when you return, after it has settled and clarified itself, get a draught of pure cold water there.... ”

“ The water being cold makes the pitcher cold, and as the warm air of the room strikes it, a moisture like dew is left on the pitcher, in the same manner as dew is left on grass, leaves, and flowers.
In cold weather, when the dew gathers on plants and flowers, it sometimes freezes and forms frost, and when the clouds throw off their moisture in rain drops, the rain becomes sleet, hail, or snow.
So you see that dew, rain, frost, sleet, snow, and hail are only different forms of water.
LESSON XXVI.
treas'ure, a large quantity of money ”

“ The entirely new discovery has been made that the herring love cold water, and in seasons when the temperature of the sea water rises, they keep away from the land, in deeper water, between the fifteen to eighteen fathoms for which the nets are calculated. The colder the weather the greater is the take of fish ”

“ Tenthly, Hot or cold water feels hotter or colder, respectively, when the hand is moved in it, than when it is kept at rest. For the hand, when at rest, has time, a little to check or exalt the vibrations in the contiguous hot or cold water. ”

“ When cold comes it freezes things into just the shapes they are at the time. The ground was cut up into ruts and furrows, and it froze that way. The pond of water was smooth, as it always is except when the wind blows up the waves, and it froze smooth. ”

“ It has been generally assumed that animal life ceases at the temperature at which water freezes, and this is in the main true of animals which swim in water, but whether the death is due to cold or to mechanical causes is not known. ”

“ Rain is the product of two things--heat which evaporates the waters of the oceans, lakes, and rivers; and cold which condenses them again into rain or snow. Both heat and cold are necessary, In the tropics the water is sucked up by the heat of the sun; it rises to a cooler stratum, and forms clouds; these clouds encounter the colder air flowing in from the north and south, condensation follows, accompanied probably by some peculiar electrical action, and then the rain falls. ”

“ It is, therefore, clear that cold does not affect the dwellers in the sea as it does land animals, and that this must be the case follows from the fact that seawater, "propter varias quas continet bituminis spiritusque particulas," freezes with much more difficulty than fresh water. ”

“ The water in all these rivers, lakes, and oceans is constantly rising into the air in what is called moisture or vapor. We can not see this moisture, neither can we see the air.
If the air is cold, moisture does not rise rapidly; but, as the air becomes heated, it takes up more moisture, so that the more heat there is in the air, the more moisture rises. ”

“ Also, in cold, damp climates, where the air is continually saturated with moisture, and where an additional amount is not required, the gathering clouds and the dampness of the chilly atmosphere prevent a radiation of heat from the earth, and the dew never falls in such climates. ”

“ Where the cold is so intense, a river becomes frozen from the surface to the ground. Snow falls, there may be a little rain during the moderate season, then snow comes again, and all the time the water beneath is freezing more and more solid. Gravity and the pressure of the inconceivable weight beyond keeps forcing the bulk of ice and snow nearer the ocean, until it projects into the clear sea. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that wherever water exists in considerable masses, and has a temperature nearly equal to that of the land, or only a few degrees below it, and above 45° at sunset, its surface during the night, in calm and clear weather, will be warmer than that of the contiguous land; and the air above the land will necessarily be colder than that above the water; and when they both contain their due proportion of aqueous vapour, and the situation of the ground is such as to permit the cold air from the land to mix with the warmer air above the water, mist or fog will be the result ”

“ And then, too, animals drink water, and eat it in their food, and some of this flies off into the air from their skins and lungs.
Water goes up in the air in various ways, and comes down in different forms.
The water that goes up in these different ways has also different ways of getting down upon the earth again. That which is high up in the form of clouds comes down in different shapes. When cold air meets the clouds, and changes the water so finely divided in them into drops, it falls in rain. When the air is cold enough to freeze it, it falls in the shape of snow or hail. ”

“ What would happen in case nature did not make this exception to the laws of expansion and contraction by heat and cold, in the case of water? First, our lakes would freeze from the bottom upward; as soon as the surface became frozen, or even colder than the water underneath, it would drop to the bottom, the warmer water below coming up by a well-known law—that the warmer fluid rises and the colder falls. This circulation would continue until ice began to form, which would immediately drop to the bottom, and this process would go on until the whole mass were frozen solid. ”

“ Plants and animals perspire more on a hot day than on a cold one. The land and water give off more vapor in the summer than in the winter. Wring a handkerchief out of hot water, hang it in the sun and see how quickly it dries. Set a shallow pan of water in the sun and see how soon the water disappears. The air is always thirsty. ”

“ And so the reason why water breaks these vessels wherein it is inclosed, in the act of its freezing or congealing is, that when the cold contractions are so strong as they endeavour to extinguish the dilating nature of water, the water refilling, forces its parts so, as they break the vessel which incloses them: The same reason makes Ice clear and transparent; for it is not the rarefaction of water that doth it, but the dilation, which causes the parts of water to be not onely more loose and porous, but also more smooth and even, by resisting the cold contractions ”

“ The effect of large cold drops of water, or perhaps of ice, making altogether millions of tons in weight, falling from a great height into a deep, narrow valley, is, not only to beat down the air into that valley, but to chill the air there; and the cold air, seeking the lowest level, tends to rush down the valley, at first near the surface of the earth, but growing deeper and deeper, until the cloud itself is borne away on the swift-rushing air-freshet of its own making. ”

“ The action of the cold wind continuing, the water at the surface is still further cooled; but now, in place of contracting, it expands—instead of becoming heavier, it becomes lighter, and remains floating upon the surface. It is then still further cooled, and finally its temperature being reduced to 32 degrees, it freezes, and a layer of ice is formed on the surface of the lake. ”

“ It is thought the snows of winter furnish the water and a draught of cold air the freezing, this having been carried on until a solid body of ice has formed among the rocks, which melts a little by day and freezes again by night, so that the supply remains from season to season. ”

“ When the wind blows, it mixes all parts of the air together, and prevents that difference of temperature which causes the deposit of dew. Hence the evening mist will be more generally observed in the bosom of a valley surrounded by hills and screened from the winds that may blow from either quarter. The continual presence of moisture in the air is well shown by the condensation of water on the outside of a glass of cold spring water, or especially on the outside of a jug containing iced water. ”

“ This is because there is no water to wet the earth.
We all know that clouds bring the rain; but how do the clouds get the water? Whenever there is water on the earth, as in the rivers, the air is continually drawing up the moisture in tiny invisible [p61] drops. This moisture rises in the air and forms clouds. When the clouds get very heavy, down comes the water which we call rain. In cold weather it is changed into snow. ”

“ If water, like other fluids, continued to increase in [323] density to the freezing point, the cold air of winter would rob the water of our lakes and rivers of its heat, until the whole was reduced to the temperature of thirty-two degrees; when, but for the circumstance to which we have just alluded, it would be immediately converted into a solid mass of ice from top to bottom, causing instant death to every animal living in it. ”

“ In fact, when on the cessation of summer the first cold winds tend to bring on the winter, and to bind up our lakes in frost, the first portion of water frozen becomes, by giving up its latent heat, a source of warmth which tempers the chilly air, and retards its action on the remainder. The water freezes thus very slowly. The vegetables, and certain classes of animals, feeling the cold of winter thus gradually coming on, prepare to meet it without injury. ”

“ When this separating motion becomes weakened in the water by the cold, the particles of compressed air concealed in the water collect; and, becoming larger, they become more capable of acting outwards through their buoyancy. ”

“ The thawing water cut away the ice from underneath, leaving no mark on the surface, weakening it in spots, and if one went through, the tide swept him under the ice, where the water was at least cold enough to chill one and make death easy. ”

“ By the use of these instruments he showed that the bottom water of deep lakes is uniformly cold at all seasons, and that the annual heat wave takes six months to penetrate to a depth of 30 ft. in the earth. ”

“ Now the sun is continually changing the water of rivers, ponds, lakes, and of the ocean, into vapor. This vapor rises. The air about a mile above the earth, is much colder than it is on the earth; so when the hot vapor from the ocean meets the cold air, it again becomes water, and forms clouds. ”

“ For at mid-day the water is cold to the taste, and still more so to the touch, as cold as cold can be. But when the sun has sunk into the west, it gets warmer, and from the evening it keeps on growing warmer until midnight, when it reaches the warmest point. ”

“ All day I hear the noise of waters
Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is, when going
Forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water’s
Monotone.
The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro. ”

“ Wherever the sun-waves touch the rivers, ponds, lakes, seas, or fields of ice and snow upon our earth, they carry off invisible water-vapour. They dart down through the top layers of the water, and shake the water-particles forcibly apart; and in this case the drops fly asunder more easily and before they are so hot, because they are not kept down by a great weight of water above, as in the kettle, but find plenty of room to spread themselves out in the gaps between the air-atoms of the atmosphere. ”

“ Returning to the river, I plunged into the current to relieve me from the pinching frost, that gnawed every part of my skin that had become wet; and rushing forward as fast as the weight of the water, that pressed me downward, would permit, was soon up to my chin in melted ice, when rising to the surface, I exerted my utmost strength and skill to gain the opposite shore by swimming in the shortest space of time. At every stroke of my arms and legs, they were cut and bruised by cakes of solid ice, or weighed down by floating masses of congealed snow. ”

“ We were almost perpetually wrapt in thick fogs, beaten with showers of rain, sleet, hail, and snow, the temperature of the air being constantly about the point of congelation in the height of summer; surrounded by innumerable islands of ice against which we daily ran the risk of being shipwrecked, and forced to live upon salt provisions, which concurred with the cold and wet to infect the mass of our blood. ”