Shallow water

“ If we also visit the spot at a time when the river is swollen by heavy rains or melting snows, the presence of this organic matter will be masked by the turbidity of the water; we shall learn that only in the freshet seasons does the water attain sufficient velocity to carry any visible load of sand and clay. The upper end of the lake will be found to be shallow, muddy, and water lilies will have discovered congenial surroundings. ”

“ Many women were carrying water in jars upon their shoulders from shallow wells scooped out of the sand in the bed of the stream, which is not a stream at all, save during the floods of the rainy season. ”

“ I have seen a “waterfall” of this mist overflow from a dent in the edge of ground that contained a pool. That seems to argue for an origin similar to that of a spring; as if strongly moisture-laden air welled up from underground, condensing its steam as it got chilled. It is these strange phenomena that are familiar, too, in the northern plains of Europe which must have given rise to the belief in elves and other weird creations of the brain—“the earth has bubbles as the water has”—not half as weird, though, as some realities are in the land which I love. ”

“ The vast volume of pent-in water meeting all manner of submerged obstacles dashes in zigzag from shore to shore, cannoning off walls of rock until the whole gorge becomes one rushing, gyrating mass of angry water. ”

“ On either side of us, as the mouth is neared, there are dreary salt marshes, which are often flooded by the sea when the tides are high. On the banks, the fern-like attap-palm, that lover of the mud, bends over in graceful curves to dip the ends of its long fronds in the dirty water. ”

“ The shower, the rain, and the storm pass away, the clouds vanish, and the bright stars again shine clearly upon the glad earth. The rain-drops sink into the ground, and gather in subterranean reservoirs, and run in subterranean channels, and bubble up in springs and fountains; and from the mountain-sides and heads of valleys the silver threads of water begin their long journey to the ocean. ”

“ In the shallow parts of many Swiss lakes, where there is a depth of no more than from 5 to 15 feet of water, ancient wooden piles are observed at the bottom sometimes worn down to the surface of the mud, sometimes projecting slightly above it. ”

“ The tide flows up the river many miles past the waterworks, carrying up with it the filth from the sewers. The supply of water was, to be sure, obtained when the tide was down, but as the banks of the river are clothed with sedges in many parts, and its bottom deep with mud, the water can never be free from sewage. ”

“ Only in one small panel do we remember any deviation from the type of slow-running river water that he usually affected, and there we are shown small craft exposed to the mean spiteful choppiness of a wind-exposed estuary, an unconvincing picture from the utter monotony of treatment of beaten water. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles, swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,—do they stay the waters, or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its onward flow? ”

“ So our rivers are doing to-day what they have always done—they are tearing down rocks, grinding and sifting the fragments, and letting them fall where the current of fresh water meets a great body of water that is still, or has currents contrary to that of the river.
Do you see a little dead fish in the water? It is on the way to become a fossil, and the mud that sifts over it, to become a layer of slate. Every seashore buries its dead in layers of sand and mud. ”

“ Two long, smooth slopes of rock one below another form the chief part of the water-slide, and the thin stream slipping over them makes one wish to see how the fall would look when the water comes down, a roaring torrent, swollen by heavy rains and melting snow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Next it increases in its volume and its power, now rushing rapidly, now moving along in deep and tranquil water, until it swells into a bold stream, coursing its way over the shallows, dashing through the impeding rocks, descending in rapids swift as thought, or pouring its boiling water over the cataract. ”

“ A drop of water falls on the Rocky Mountains, it trickles along, going around through pebbles and grains of sand; it joins with others, meets trees and roots, winds and twists perhaps for hundreds, even thousands of miles before one can tell by what channel it will reach the sea. ”

“ God has so made it that as much water is incessantly rising into the air from the sea as is being poured into it. But how is it, then, that the streams and rivers do not dry up ? Whence comes that volume of water which they are continuously pouring into the sea? The mists and clouds which rise from the sea are driven over the land by the wind, and fall back on the earth in the form of either dew, fog, rain or snow. ”

“ In a suction green as an uncut emerald, a volume of water, twenty fathoms deep, is hurled over a precipice 160 feet high. One hundred million tons of water pass over every hour, with a roar that can be heard ten miles away, and a reverberation that shakes the very earth itself, into the seething cauldron below, shrouded in an eternal mist:—"There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard." ”

“ To this supremacy in mosses and flowers we have next to add an inestimable gain in the continual presence and power of water. Neither in its clearness, its colour, its fantasy of motion, its calmness of space, depth, and reflection, or its wrath, can water be conceived by a lowlander, out of sight of sea. A sea wave is far grander than any torrent—but of the sea and its influences we are not now speaking; and the sea itself, though it can be clear, is never calm, among our shores, in the sense that a mountain lake can be calm. ”

“ But it is observable that the waters of lakes and ponds stand immovable, because the air about them stagnates immovable and admits of no vacuity. For the water on the surface of lakes and seas is troubled and fluctuates as the air is moved, it following the motion of the air, and moving as it is moved. ”

“ These springs feed the streams and rivers which carry the water back again to the sea. It is owing to this continuous circulation of water that the sea does not overflow, or the rivers dry up. Moreover, those damp exhalations supply the air with that moisture which is necessary to the life of men and beasts, and to the growth of plants. One thing more. You know that water turns foul when it remains for some time without being stirred. How is it that though it is shut in one place, the water of the sea never turns foul? ”

“ Yet even icebergs bring down earth and stones frozen into the bottom of the ice, and so they feed the sea with mud.
But the drops of water in rivers are by no means as pure as when they rose up into the sky. We shall see in the next lecture how rivers carry down not only sand and mud all along their course, but even solid matter such as salt, lime, iron, and flint, dissolved in the clear water, just as sugar is dissolved, without our being able to see it. The water, too, which has sunk down into the earth, takes up much matter as it travels along. ”

“ This drains off from the surface, forming rills, which collect as they descend, by their own weight, into the lowest channels of the ground, and form into streams and rivers, and back into the sea comes the water which the air had taken away, with this difference, that it is free from salt and fit for the many uses to which fresh water alone can be applied; when the vapour rises from the sea, none of the saline matters rise with it, for, although the water is volatile, yet they are not, and this is the whole source of fresh water. ”

“ The idea that water purifies itself after flowing a relatively short distance is, in many cases, far from being true, especially when we are dealing with underground water. Actual observations prove that germ-laden water may travel surprisingly far underground. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The waters, too, whether of the ocean or of the land, teem with animated beings. Scarcely is a particle of matter to be found that does not present inhabitants to our view; and a drop of ditch-water is a little world in itself, stored with inmates of corresponding magnitude. ”

“ The deeper the water in which it falls the greater the possibility of its drifting farther still, since in sinking, it would fall, not vertically, but rather as the drops of rain in a shower when being driven before a gale of wind. ”

“ The water rises suddenly from the spring and flows swiftly, ever increasing in volume as it is swollen by tributaries and absorbs into itself other rivers by the way. It may run smoothly in a fair stream, moistening barren lands and softening the parched desert into fertility; moving great engines of industry with a ceaseless, even strength ”

“ 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. ”

“ Often too we find that this tranquil expanse of silent water follows quickly after some more rapid movement, comes close upon some spot where a dashing rapid has diversified the scene, or a cataract, in roar and confusion and sparkling terror, has broken the course of the stream. ”

“ A brief residence among the mountains would prove to you that they are fed by rains. In dry weather you would find the streams feeble, sometimes, indeed, quite dried up. In wet weather you would see them foaming torrents. In general these streams lose themselves as little threads of water upon the hillsides; but sometimes you may trace a river to a definite spring. ”

“ The streams beneath the crust gradually wear away their channels leaving open spaces above them, which give out a hollow sound when one walks over them, and in them the rippling or gurgling of flowing water is to be heard more or less, beneath the crust. ”

“ Water, in the state of rain, hail, snow, or dew, is generally the only substance which falls from the atmosphere upon the earth. There are, however, many well authenticated instances of various substances being showered down upon the land, to the great alarm of persons who were ignorant that the powerful action of the wind was, perhaps, the chief cause of the strange visitations to which we allude.
We read of showers of sand, mud, sulphur, blood, fishes, frogs, insects, and stones ”

“ River-water is in general purer than spring-water; as the neutral salts washed down from the earth decompose each other, except perhaps the marine salt; and the earths, with which spring-water frequently abounds, is precipitated; yet it is not improbable, that the calcareous earth dissolved in the water of many springs may contribute to our nourishment, as the water from springs, which contain earth, is said to conduce to enrich those lands, which are flooded with it, more than river water. ”

“ In treating of formations in valleys, we cannot always confine our illustrations to the operations of fresh waters, because continued research appears, in several instances, to show that what appeared at first to be due to lacustrine fluctuation or river currents was really the effect of water-movement in an ancient arm of the sea. ”

“ The chief work of a river is to drain the land; to bear superfluous waters into the great deep. Water lying stagnant on land becomes harmful. Immense supplies are perpetually needed; but it must be fresh water, clear water, running water, water newly fallen from the skies, [p. 90] or newly received from ever fresh because ever renewed springs. ”

“ Sometimes, when the tide is high, and there is a quantity of land water, you can hear the water rushing beneath the houses. The fresh water rushes down from the hills and meets the incoming tide, and that causes part of the town to be flooded at certain seasons. ”

“ Leaching.—The waters which dash against the shore, which the running streams pour into the flood, or with which the tides and currents scour the bottom of their channel ways, have soaked from the soil, or leached out of the disintegrated materials which strew the beach or line the shores, portions of every soluble ingredient known in nature. Thus impregnated, the laughing, dancing waters come down from the mountains, turning wheels, driving machinery, and serving the manifold purposes of man. At last they find their way into the sea, and so make the lye of the earth brine for the ocean. ”