Spring (water)

“ The water, if taken from a well or cold spring, should be exposed one day to the sun, otherwise it will chill the plants. A small quantity only should be applied at a time, that it may have the effect of refreshing rain.
Rain water is the best for plants; next river water; hard spring water is the worst. ”

“ Because it isn’t surface water at all, but spring water that comes from a source very different from that of the swamp soil. You have perhaps observed that the bottom of our spring is composed of clean, white sand, through which the water rises. ”

“ River-waters are less liable to be loaded with metallick, petrifying, saline and other insanous Particles of the Earth, than the Well or Spring sorts are, especially at some distance from the Spring-head, because the Rain water mixes with and softens it, and are also much cured by the Sun's heat and the Air's power, for which reason I have known several so strict, that they won't let their Horses drink near the first rise of some of them ”

“ As we have seen, certain wells in our own land could control the weather. This was so, even when the guardian spirit of the spring assumed no definite shape. The rites required to obtain the desired object were nothing less than an acknowledgment of the spirit’s existence. The origin of the connection between weather and wells can only be guessed at. It appears that the splashing of a spring when an object was thrown into it, or the sprinkling of the water over the neighbouring ground, was thought to cause rain, through what may be called a dramatic representation of a shower. ”

“ In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through the increased temperature of the air and earth, but its heat passes through ice a foot or more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in shallow water, and so also warms the water and melts the under side of the ice, at the same time that it is melting it more directly above, making it uneven, and causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend themselves upward and downward until it is completely honey-combed, and at last disappears suddenly in a single spring rain. ”

“ The clearness of the water may be likened to the air itself, for at its greatest depth of eighty feet objects on the bottom may be clearly and distinctly seen, likewise the fissure through which the water pours up like a veritable fountain. A peculiarity of the spring is the prismatic colors which are reflected from any white or shiny object thrown into it. ”

“ Water runs over them only in the spring, in the rare cases when they have been pressed down smoothly and compactly by the weight of the snow—a state in which they remain only until they are dry, when shrinkage and the action of the wind soon roughen the surface so as effectually to stop, by absorption, all flow of water. I have observed that when a sudden frost succeeds a thaw at the close of the winter, after the snow has principally disappeared, the water in and between the layers of leaves sometimes freezes into a solid crust, which allows the flow of water over it. ”

“ The rain, which is pure water, except for the little particles of various things floating in the air which it brings down with it, soaks into the ground, forming springs, and helps to swell the ponds and lakes and rivers, and so it gets mineral and other substances in it again, especially salt, which is found in small quantities in all spring-water, and this impure water is carried to the ocean again to be purified ”

“ 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. ”

“ Springs supply water which, originally derived from rain-water, has percolated through the soil until it reaches some impervious stratum, and has then run along this, until it arrives at the point at which the impervious stratum reaches the surface of the soil. A spring is thus the outcrop of the underground water. ”

“ As vapor rises into high, cool air, or is carried with the air in winds up the sides of mountains, it turns into water again, and comes falling down as rain.
Now think where the rain that falls on mountains must go. Some of the water runs off on the surface, down the mountain slope. Some sinks into the ground, and runs along in little streams below the surface. It will appear again, bubbling out of the mountain side as a spring. The spring is the beginning of a river. ”

“ The [109] springs do not gush out in streams as from rocky formations, but ooze up into great mounds, frequently involving an acre or more, like a great conical sponge, up the side of which you can walk, the water gushing out under every footstep, giving an impression that you may sink in all the way to the top, where you will find an open spring several feet across, the water from which seems to be absorbed by this spongy mound of earth and vegetation, so that a stream rarely runs away. ”

“ In wet weather in the spring, every hill abounds with water, the brooks run over in their affluence, and all the hill-sides and plains are green; but, when week after week there is no dew nor rain, and month after month the heavens impart no germinative moisture to the ground, the little streams dry up, the surface springs are choked with heat and dust, then we go to the well, that is bored into the primeval rock, embosomed in the mountain, and drink cool sweet water that never fails. ”

“ In order to show the superiority of the water of life, he told her that those who drank it should have it in them, constantly springing up of itself, as if the waters of the well should rise up and overflow, without being drawn. The very idea of a living spring seems to cut off the hope of backsliders. You remember the cold spring that used to flow from the rock, before our father's door. The severest drought never affected it, and in the coldest season of a northern winter it was never frozen. ”

“ B. A spring can never rise above the level of the reservoir whence it issues; it must, therefore, find a passage to some part of the surface of the earth, that is lower, or nearer the centre, than the reservoir. It is true that, in this figure, the spring rises in its passage from B to C; but this, I think, with a little reflection, you will be able to account for.
Emily. Oh, yes; it is owing to the pressure of fluids upwards; and the water rises in the duct, upon the same principle as it rises in the spout of a tea-pot ”

“ On the approach of spring, the warmer air, and the rays of the more elevated sun, act directly on the surface of the ice, and each portion of water formed by melting, becoming heavier, sinks, so as to expose the ice itself to the source of heat. Thus the ice is rapidly dissolved, and after a few days the lake throws off its wintry aspect altogether. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a spring which rises in a neighbouring mountain, and running among the rocks is received into a little banqueting-room, artificially formed for that purpose, from whence, after being detained a short time, it falls into the Larian lake. The nature of this spring is extremely curious; it ebbs and flows regularly three times a day. The increase and decrease is plainly visible, and exceedingly interesting to observe. You sit down by the side of the fountain, and while you are taking a repast and drinking its water, which is extremely cool, you see it gradually rise and fall. ”

“ The principal peculiarity in the appearance of this spring, is a large quantity of elastic vapour that rises, and forms bubbles, which pass through the water, and break as soon as they reach the surface. ”

“ When rain-water falls on the earth it either sinks into the ground until it reaches an impervious layer, where it collects as a subterranean pool, forming a well, or continues to flow underground until it finally emerges at the surface as a spring ”

“ So cold and prolonged is the winter, that the first mild breath of spring breaks on the senses like a zephyr from the plains of Paradise. Everything bursts suddenly into vigorous life, after the long, death-like sleep of Nature; as little children burst into the romping gaieties of a new day, after the deep repose of a long and tranquil night. The snow melts, the ice breaks up, and rushes in broken masses, heaving and tossing in the rising floods, that grind and whirl them into the ocean, or into those great fresh-water lakes that vie with ocean itself in magnitude and grandeur. ”

“ They conduct water from the spring-heads by means of hollow trunks of trees laid end to end, through which water flows in the directions in which It is wanted, sometimes for an extent of fifty miles from one spring. ”

“ To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given landmark to the right or left, to find a dry spring where one looked for running water—there is no help for any of these things. ”

“ It is now the dry season, but, nevertheless, the river is swift and deep, a tide of clear blue water too swift and too deep to ford or swim. In the rainy season it must be a boisterous mighty stream, for its fall is rapid. ”

“ In the summer season, when no rain falls to lay the dust or irrigate the earth, the streams, which, during the winter, are like mountain torrents, and sweep every thing opposed to them towards the ocean, become puny little rivulets, and as the summer advances, disappear altogether from sight, and nothing but deep gulches mark the spot where but a few months before a large body of water flowed. ”

“ These springs are not what are known as surface springs—that is, the residue of a former exceptionally wet season, issuing from the foot of some well-soaked hill or ridge—but strong volumes of water that vary not in any season, totally unaffected by drought; in fact, running stronger during dry weather. ”

“ By the time you have reached the spring the woods are full of life and sound, and the spring itself adds to the winter music. The rocks where it bubbles out are thickly covered with hoar frost. One of the big blocks of limestone in its causeway is covered with ice, clear and viscid as molten glass. The river is bridged over with ice twenty inches thick, save only the little gulf stream into which the spring pours its waters. From the surface of this stream thin smoky wreaths of vapor rise and are changed into crystals by the frosty air. ”

“ Wastwater, its shores treeless and forlorn, its waters rippling against their shingly bays, with mountains beyond and around, curtains of rock and ribbons of scree. In the cool days of spring the mountains are delightful, but sometimes there is a sudden revulsion to winter. A shade sweeps from nor’east, and behold a squall plastering all with snow, a gale shrieking around, and the temperature tumbling to zero. Such mischances apart, the bracing air makes a new creature of one after the fogs of winter, and you simply stroll up the ascents. ”

“ In winter, of course, they are not needed. But throughout the long and rainless summer, when vegetation withers up and blows away, the steady sea-breeze keeps the wind-mills going, and these pump up water for a thousand irrigating purposes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Water, tumbling as snow, hardens into ice, and rasps away continually at the surfaces of the mountains. Rivers scrape off, and carry away with them, every particle of earth that they meet with on their journey to the sea. ”

“ The rain that fills the springs high up among the hills, where a little brook has its source—the rain that feeds the brook as it flows, and other brooks that join it on its way, until it becomes the river that descends in the water-fall. And what is the source of the rain? The sun, whose rays turn the waters of the earth to vapor, and lift them up to the clouds, whence they fall upon the hills. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Even in summer, when the melting of the snows that feed the stream make it of far greater volume than when the stricture of frost is on it, the water, poured as from a jug-spout, disintegrates in its fall, so that it reaches the valley more in wreaths of mist than in solid water, and collects again from the dripping rocks ”

“ When we were talking about the clouds we learnt that from every wet place, as well as from the seas, lakes, and rivers, water is constantly being drawn up, so that we can see it again in the fleecy clouds which float across the sky, and again when it comes down in the showers which water the earth—the tiny heat-waves are the messengers which perform this work of evaporation. ”