50 SPRINGS. 



science turns the conception over and makes the con 

 nection in the air disclosing the great water-main 

 in the clouds, and that the mighty engine of the hy- 

 draulic system of nature is the sun, the fact becomes 

 even more poetical, does it not ? This is one of the 

 many cases where science, instead of curtailing the 

 imagination, makes new and large demands upon it. 



The hills are great sponges that do not and can- 

 not hold the water that is precipitated upon them, 

 but that let it filter through at the bottom. This is 

 the way the sea has robbed the eartB of its various 

 salts, its potash, its lime, its magnesia, and many other 

 mineral elements. It is found that the oldest up- 

 heavals, those sections of the country that have been 

 longest exposed to the leeching and washing of the 

 rains, are poorest in those substances that go to the 

 making of the osseous frame-work of man and of the 

 animals. Wheat does not grow well there, and the 

 men born and reared there are apt to have brittle 

 bones. An important part of those men went down 

 stream, ages before they were born. The water of 

 such sections is now soft and free from mineral sub- 

 Btances, but not more wholesome on that account. 



The gigantic springs of the country that have not 

 been caught in any of the great natural basins, are 

 mostly confined to the limestone region of the Mid- 

 dle and Southern States, the valley of Virginia 

 and its continuation and deflections into Kentucky 

 Tennessee, Northern Alabama, Georgia, and Flor- 

 da. Through this belt are found the great cave* 



