Water body

“ Also the exterior and outward shape or form makes some bodies more apt to sink then others; Indeed, the outward form and shape of Creatures is one of the chief causes of either sinking or swimming. But to conclude, water in its interior nature is of a mean or middle degree, as neither too rare, nor too grave a body; and for its exterior quality, it is in as high a degree for wetness, as fire is for heat; and being apt both to divide, and to unite, it can bear a burden, and devour a burden, so that some bodies may swim, and others sink ”

“ A fish placed in an air-tight jar will soon die. It will be proven later that plants also need air in order to live.
Apparatus for separating water by means of an electric current into the two elements, hydrogen and oxygen.
Chart to show the percentage of chemical elements in the human body.
Water.—We all know that water must form part of the environment of plants and animals. It is a matter of common knowledge that pets need water to drink; so do other animals. Every one knows we must water a potted plant if we expect it to grow. ”

“ Deprived of air, or of the fluid that surrounds them, that presses on them, that penetrates them, that gives them their elasticity, they presently cease to live. Water, combined with this air, enters into their whole mechanism of which it facilitates the motion. Earth serves them for a basis, by giving solidity to their texture: it is conveyed by air and water, which carry it to those parts of the body with which it can combine. ”

“ The importance of water in the economy of nature is obvious to all. It is the most abundant substance of which we have knowledge. It composes four-fifths of the weight of vegetables, and three-fourths of that of animals. It is essential to the continuance of organic life. Water is universally present in all of the tissues and fluids of the body. ”

“ Water is the original source of all animal life. From it the earliest species were evolved, and by the natural law of correlation, it continues to be one of the most important factors in sustaining existence. Water enters more largely into the composition of all organic substance than the majority of people dream of, and this is notably true of the human body. Few people realize that seventy per cent. of their earthly tenement consists of the fluid in which they perform their ablutions, yet such is the fact. ”

“ Even as the ordinary movements of a water-clock or of a mill are kept up by the ordinary flow of the water, and even as 'in the grottoes and fountains of royal gardens, the force wherewith the water issues from its reservoirs suffices to move various machines, and even to make them play instruments or pronounce words according to the different disposition of the pipes which lead the water'—even so do pulsation, respiration, digestion, nutrition, and growth, and 'other such actions as are natural and usual in the body,' result naturally from the usual course of the animal spirits. ”

“ It is not only abundant in the blood and secretions, but it is also an ingredient of the solids of the body. According to the most accurate computations, water is found to constitute from two-thirds to three-fourths of the entire weight of the human body. ”

“ Multiplying in myriads, and being too small and weak to resist the elements, they are constantly swept about in currents of water or air, and in the moisture on the surfaces of moving animals, etc. Well-authenticated observations show that with the evaporation of ponds and other waters containing swarms of these little animals, many encyst themselves within delicate capsules formed of an exudation, which hardens the body-surface ”

“ Into one of the nozzles, when the tide comes over it, is constantly sucked a current of sea-water which passes into a stomach-like cavity, where the minute particles of food in the water are caught and digested; then the water passes on through another cavity where the blood receives its oxygen, as in our lungs or a crab's or fish's gills, and then rushes out. ”

“ Can you imagine these water-particles, just above any pond or lake, rising up and getting entangled among the air-atoms? They are very light, much lighter than the atmosphere; and so, when a great many of them are spread about in the air which lies just over the pond, they make it much lighter than the layer of air above, and so help it to rise, while the heavier layer of air comes down ready to take up more vapour. ”

“ Before entering upon a description of the law that governs the flow of glaciers, let us stop and give a little [Pg 178] study to the phenomena of water as exhibited when it is at the freezing point. Water is such a large factor in the make-up of our globe and the air that surrounds it that it becomes a very interesting and important study to anyone who wishes to understand the phenomena of nature that are closely related to it.
As all know, pure water is a compound of two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, combined in the proportion of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The operations of water.—There are processes no less interesting going on in other parts of this magnificent field of research. Water is nature's carrier. With its currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone and ice from the frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicles of its vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it, by unknown paths, to the most distant parts of the earth. The materials of which the coral builds the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys in all latitudes. ”

“ Similarly, the land animals, being moderately supplied with the elements of air and heat, and having less of the earthy and a great deal of moisture, cannot long continue alive in the water, because their portion of moisture is already abundant. ”

“ If the living animal be kept under observation it will be seen that a stream of water is ejected with considerable force from the vents, carrying with it minute particles in suspension. At the same time numerous smaller streams enter the canal system through the inhalant pores, bringing with them the minute particles of organic matter upon which the sponge feeds and the oxygen which it requires for respiration. ”

“ Stretches of water and great reaches of land and the atmosphere furnish the basis upon which organisms must act, and either water or air, the medium that must serve them for many of their most vital functions. Glancing over the opportunities for survival of life in a delicate, simple condition, we can hardly fail to recognize the water as the most natural element for primal life-forms. ”

“ Perhaps the early waters covered the earth. And water was the second preparation for life—water, that can dissolve a larger variety of substances in greater concentration than any other liquid; water, that in summer does not readily evaporate altogether from a pond, nor in winter freeze throughout its whole extent; water, that is such a mobile vehicle and such a subtle cleaver of substances; water, that forms over 80 per cent. of living matter itself. ”

“ The ascent of the water in the left leg answers to the appearance of the profitable modifications under domestication, the apex of the tube to the existing state of nature, and the descent of the water in the right leg answers to degeneration under nature; while the height from which the water has descended in the right leg, and to which in the left leg it is ascending in conformity to the rule that water always seeks its own level, in like manner answers to the perfect type of the species from which the animal or plant has degenerated, and to which it is reverting. ”

“ But our purpose demands a particular examination of the relation of water to the other atmospherical and terrestrial substances, more particularly because it forms, as we shall show, the most essential link between organized and unorganized bodies, or rather the constant source from which the former arise. Water considered in its threefold form, as solid, fluid, and gaseous, presents a true middle and connecting member between the planet and its atmosphere. ”

“ It seems probable that mineral waters rising deep from the bowels of the earth, would always be more deranged by subterranean disturbances than those nearer the surface. The man who had charge of the baths, assured me that in summer the water is hotter and more plentiful than in winter. ”

“ Rivers are to the globe what the veins are to the animal organization. They pick up the surplus moisture not needed in the growth of vegetation and for the sustenance of animal life, and carry it on, together with the débris that it gathers in its course, to the great reservoirs, the seas and oceans, where it is redistilled and purified by the action of the sun's rays. From here it is carried back in the form of invisible moisture and again precipitated in the purified state, to help carry on the great operations of growth—animal and vegetable. ”

“ In connection with the question of absorption and filtration, it is interesting to investigate the movements of water in the ground. The natural tendency of water, in the soil as well as out of it, is to descend perpendicularly toward the center of the earth. ”

“ We now see that, as a living organism, it tends, on the one hand, to diminish the humidity of the air by sometimes absorbing moisture from it, and, on the other, to increase that humidity by pouring out into the atmosphere, in a vaporous form, the water it draws up through its roots. ”

“ When water encounters any substance of this nature, therefore, its progress is stopped, and it is diffused through the porous earth, and sometimes the pressure of the accumulating waters, forms a bed, or reservoir. ”

“ But since water encompasses the earth, and man is not an aquatic, but a land-animal, living in the air, and requiring much light, Providence formed many eminences and cavities in the earth, so that these cavities should receive the whole or a great part of the water which covers the land beneath it; and that the eminences should rise and conceal the water beneath them, except so much as was necessary for the use of the human race, the animals and plants about it. ”

“ We consider water, therefore, as the great pabulum of nature, which, as before noticed, enters either simply or chemically into the constitution of all223 bodies, and appears to be held, almost exclusively, in solution, in the formation and maintenance of the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms, and is found to exist largely in the composition of all mineral substances. ”

“ The chief source of supply for water which falls on the earth is from the ocean. The heat of the sun raises a vapour from its surface. This vapour condenses and falls as rain or snow, either on sea or land. Rain after falling for some time is almost pure and for that reason is called soft. Hard water contains various minerals. ”

“ 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 reasons of this would seem to be that the better support given by the water makes less demands upon organs for mechanical strength, that the water preserves a more uniform temperature than the air, and that arrangements for respiration in water are less elaborate than those necessary in air. Hence the conditions of life are, so to speak, easier in water than in air, more especially for creatures of simple structure and low vital energy. ”

“ But it is plain that no river sinks from sight unless it finds porous or honeycombed rocks that let it through. The water seeks the nearest and easiest route to the sea. Its weight presses toward the lowest level, always. The more water absorbs of acid, the more powerfully does it attack and carry away the substance of lime rocks through which it passes. ”

“ Thus we learn that it is the warmth of the sun that has made the water boil. If you visit the water-works you will see great reservoirs. In some cases they have been filled by a river, sometimes the water is pumped from a15 deep well in the ground, sometimes it is the surface-water caught on a mountain side. Whatever be the immediate source of our water supply, the real origin is to be sought, not in the earth beneath, but in the heavens above. All the water we use day by day has come from the clouds. ”

“ The water contains both solid and gaseous matter, and the distinction between the two requires to be attended to, as it is owing to its very minute proportion of solid matter that it deserves the character of a very fine natural spring. ”

“ Where the loss of water is too great, this waxy pellicle left behind by the escaping water will protect most those individuals of the species in which it is thickest or densest; and by inheritance and continual survival of the fittest, there will be established in the species that thickness of the layer which brings the evaporation to a balance with the supply of water. ”