6 Common Science 



SECTION 2. " Water seeks its own level. " 



Why does a spring bubble up from the ground? 

 What makes the water come up through the pipe into 

 your house ? 



Why is a fire engine needed to pump water up high ? 



You remember that up where the pull of the earth 

 and the sun balance each other, water could not flow or 

 flatten out. Let us try to imagine that water, here on 

 the earth, has lost its habit of flattening out whenever 

 possible that, like clay, it keeps whatever shape it is 

 given. 



First you notice that the water fails to run out of the 

 faucets. (For in most places in the world as it really is, 

 the water that comes through faucets is simply flowing 

 down from some high reservoir.) People all begin to 

 search for water to drink. They rush to the rivers and 

 begin to dig the water out of them. It looks queer to 

 see a hole left in the water wherever a person has scooped 

 up a pailful. If some one slips into the river while 

 getting water, he does not drown, because the water 

 cannot close in over his head ; there is just a deep hole 

 where he has fallen through, and he breathes the air 

 that comes down to him at the bottom of the hole. If 

 you try to row on the water, each stroke of the oars piles 

 up the water, and the boat makes a deep furrow wherever 

 it goes so that the whole river begins to look like a rough, 

 plowed field. 



When the rivers are used up, people search in vain for 

 springs. (No springs could flow in our everyday world 

 if water did not seek its own level; for the waters of 

 the springs come from hills or mountains, and the higher 



