216 PONDS ON HILLS. 



facts may furnish the intelligent with hints concerning what 

 sorts of trees they should plant round small ponds that they 

 would wish to be perennial; and show them how advan- 

 tageous some trees ar^ in preference to others. 



Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check eva- 

 poration so much, that woods are always moist ; no wonder, 

 therefore, that they contribute much to pools and streams. 



That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears 

 from a well-known fact in North America; for, since the 

 woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies 

 of water are much diminished; so that some streams that 

 were very considerable a century ago will not now drive a 

 common mill,* Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases, 

 with us, abound with pools and morasses, no doubt for the 

 reason given above. 



To a thinking mind, few phenomena are more strange 

 than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk hills, 

 many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts of 

 summer ; on chalk hills, I say, because in many rocky and 

 gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on the 

 sides of elevated grounds and mountains ; but no person 

 acquainted with chalky districts will allow that they ever saw 

 springs in such a soil but in valleys and bottoms, since the 

 waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on one dead 

 level, as well-diggers have assured me again and again. 



Now, we have many such little round ponds in this dis- 

 trict ; and one in particular on our sheep-down, three 

 hundred feet above my house, which, though never above 

 three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet 

 in diameter, and containing perhaps not more than two or 

 three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to 

 fail, though it affords drink for three hundred or four hundred 

 sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle besides. 

 This pond, it is true, is overhung with two moderate beeches, 

 that, doubtless, at times afford it much supply ; but then we 

 have others as small, that, without the aid of trees, and in 



in order the more readily to destroy the buffaloes. The consequence was that 

 light and air penetrated the forests, the snow melted rapidly, and it has 

 materially altered the climate of the vast regions of North America. See 

 SIR FRANCIS HEAD'S Emigrant. ED. 



* Vide KALM'S Travels to North America. 



