Receiving to Give Again 



ings of over one hundred and fifty glaciers, and 

 is said to be fed in its course by something like 

 twelve thousand lesser streams. The Rhine 

 drains, at the very least, between thirty and forty 

 thousand square miles of country ; and it pays to 

 the Ocean an annual tribute of more than ten 

 cubic miles of water. More than a thousand 

 cubic miles each hundred years. 



Let us take a look at the Yangtsekiang a 

 Chinese river of special interest for British trade. 

 It drains over six hundred and fifty thousand 

 square miles of land ; and each year it hands 

 over to the Ocean more than one hundred and 

 twenty-five cubic miles of water. 



See the Mississippi. More than a million 

 square miles of American territory are drained 

 by it ; and its annual gift to the Ocean amounts, 

 like that of the great Chinese river, to over one 

 hundred and twenty-five cubic miles of water. 



Or once more take the Amazon. By that 

 mighty stream more than two million square 

 miles of land are drained ; and more than five 

 hundred cubic miles of water are poured annually 

 into the sea. So the Amazon presents to the 

 Ocean in the course of a year what the Seine 

 presents in the course of a century. 



It has been reckoned that "all the rivers" of 



91 



