Water trough

“ The river, or rather the bed of it, is here of great width, and most frightful depth, lined on all sides with huge masses of black rock of every imaginable form. The flood that roars through them is seen only at intervals; here in a full heavy sheet of green transparent water, falling straight and unbroken; there dashing along a narrow channel, with a violence that makes one dizzy to see and hear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ P. M. Walden.—I seem to discern the very form of the wind when, blowing over the hills, it falls in broad flakes upon the surface of the pond, this subtle element obeying the same law with the least subtle. As it falls it spreads itself like a mass of lead dropped upon an anvil. I cannot help being encouraged by this blithe activity in the elements in these degenerate days of men. Who hears the rippling of the rivers will not utterly despair of anything. The wind in the wood yonder sounds like an incessant waterfall, the water dashing and roaring among rocks. ”

“ 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? ”

“ When the spout breaks, a considerable part of the water in the air drops in a torrential deluge. Popular tradition has it that sea water drawn into a spout falls as fresh water—a tradition that is contrary to the facts of the case. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When, too, in flood time, the hurrying current seems to respond more sensitively to the shape of the shallows and the banks beneath, there boils up from below a ceaseless succession of irregular circles as if the water there expanded from a centre, marking the verge of its outflow with bubbles and raised lines upon the surface. ”

“ You have the same barren russet, but now instead of a dry, hard, cold wind, a peculiarly soft, moist air, or else a raw wind. Now is the reign of water. I see many crows on the water's edge these days. It is astonishing how soon the ice has gone out of the river. But it still lies on the bottom of the meadow.
Is it peculiar to the song-sparrow to dodge behind and hide in walls and the like?
Toward night the water becomes smooth and beautiful. Men are eager to launch their boats and paddle over the meadows.
March 12, 1856. I never saw such solid mountains of snow in the roads. ”

“ Instead of carrying the heat of the air, and of the surface of the ground, to the subsoil, the rain only adds so much to the amount of water to be evaporated, and increases, by so much, the chilling effect of evaporation. ”

“ A LONG, long time ago there was a big drought on the earth. All the rivers dried up and the streams and wells, and the trees withered and the bushes and grass, and men and beasts died of thirst.
One night a little girl went out with a pitcher to find some water for her sick mother. She wandered and wandered everywhere, but could find no water, and she grew so tired that she lay down on the grass and fell asleep. When she awoke and took up the pitcher she nearly upset the water it contained. The pitcher was full of clear, fresh water. ”

“ Water, even at the regular watering-places, was so scarce that a heavy charge was made for each animal drinking, and it seemed that, if the drought did not break very soon, the route would have to be utterly abandoned. ”

“ But at night they seek the meadow where the water, running swiftly in the carriers, never entirely freezes, and where, if the shallow spots become ice, the rising current flows over it and floods another place. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But so soon as condensation markedly exceeds evaporation, rain falls, and the atmosphere discharges its vast load of water—how vast we may gather from the fact [Pg 160] that the waters of all the rivers are but a part of the overflowings of the great atmospheric reservoir. "God binds up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mechanical work of the rain.—In falling the rain washes the atmosphere, taking from it much of the dust, spores, etc., which the winds have lifted from the surface of the dry land. Not only this, but in passing through the atmosphere the water dissolves some of its gases, and perhaps particles of soluble solid matter. When therefore the falling water reaches the surface of the land it is no longer pure, and some of the gases it has taken up in its descent enable it to dissolve various mineral matters on which pure water has little effect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every considerable addition to its water wells up, and soaks its very surface; and that which is added after it is already brim full, must flow off over the surface, or lie in puddles upon it. Evaporation is a slow process, and it becomes more and more slow as the level of the water recedes from the surface, and is sheltered, by the overlying earth, from the action of sun and wind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It does not always rain among the mountains, but the springs and streams always flow. The reason of this is, that before the water which falls in one storm or shower has had time to drain out from the ground and flow away, another storm comes and renews the supply. ”

“ This heat comes in the middle of a drought, too, as we have not had rain for about four weeks—another phenomenon. Our rain-tank is empty, so we now depend on the supply of brackish water from the wells, and even that is reported to be limited, which is alarming, as one would commit almost any crime to get enough water for a bath. ”

“ If rain fell in torrents we would all make for the house, but he would go out again in the heaviest shower to study the direction that the water took in different places, and utilize his knowledge in irrigating, or draining, his land. ”

“ Whenever there came a short drought the waterhole was sure to run dry; then it was take turns to carry water from the springs—about two miles. We had no draught horse, and if we had there was neither water-cask, trolly, nor dray; so we humped it—and talk about a drag! By the time you returned, if you had n't drained the bucket, in spite of the big drink you'd take before leaving the springs, more than half would certainly be spilt through the vessel bumping against your leg every time you stumbled in the long grass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When wading it is just as well not to get your clothes wet if you can help it. Clothes that are made wet with seawater, [Pg 198] which probably has a little sand in it, are as uncomfortable as crumbs in bed. There is no reason why you should get them wet if you wade wisely. Sitting among the rocks, running through the water, and jumping the little crisping waves are the best ways to get soaked. ”

“ Waves are caused by the pressure and friction of the wind upon the surface of the water, as you may readily see at any pond; and the water in them simply rises and falls, driving forward a little at the very surface so as to cause a gentle current called wind-drift. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After a period of weeks or months of drouth before any rainfall has occurred at all, the fountains, long dry, often commence to run, and wells begin to fill with water, and this without a drop of rain.
Just here comes the pleasant task of answering the question fully: How can this occur without a soaking rain?
At such times, when the Earth and all nature is thirsting for water, and every fountain seems to have dried up forever, the day will come which will bring these evidences.
The aged will complain of their rheumatism; [47] men’s bones will ache; geese will wash in the dust ”

“ When immersed and inflated, they remove a quantity of water adequate to the air which they contain, and, if fixed to a ponderous body, give it a degree of buoyancy proportionate to the water they displace. ”

“ But unless the water-supply is very great—and it is only so occasionally—the stream is swallowed by the thirsty sands and absorbed by the atmosphere, which is so dry that nothing ever decays, and causes more rapid evaporation than is known elsewhere. ”

“ If we expose spring water [8] to the sun in open, or even in closed but transparent vessels, after a few days bubbles rise from the bottom, or from the sides of the vessel, and a green crust is formed at the same time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For it is not bare agitation, but the sediment at the bottom, that troubles and defiles the water; and when we see it windy and dusty, the wind does not (as we used to say) make, but only raise a dust. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”