48 SPRINGS. 



March or April the spring runs are a bright emerald, 

 while the surrounding fields are yet brown and sere, 

 and in fall they are yet green when the first snow 

 covers them. Thus every fountain by the road-side 

 is a fountain of youth and of life. This is what the 

 old fables finally .mean. 



An intermittent spring is shallow ; it has no deep 

 root and is like an inconstant friend. But a peren- 

 nial spring, one whose ways are appointed, whose 

 foundation is established, what a profound and beau- 

 tiful symbol! In fact, there is no more large and 

 universal symbol in nature than the spring, if there 

 is any other capable of such wide and various appli- 

 cations. 



What preparation seems to have been made for it 

 in the conformation of the ground, even in the deep 

 underlying geological strata ! Vast rocks and ledges 

 are piled for it, or cleft asunder that it may find a 

 way. Sometimes it is a trickling thread of silver 

 down the sides of a seamed and scarred precipice. 

 Then again the stratified rock is like a just-lifted lid, 

 from beneath which the water issues. Or it slips 

 noiselessly out of a deep dimple in the fields. Occa- 

 sionally it bubbles up is the valley as if forced up by 

 the surrounding hills. Many springs, no doubt, find 

 an outlet in the beds of the large rivers and lakes, and 

 are unknown to all but the fishes. They probably 

 find them out and make much of them. The trout 

 certainly do. Find a place in the creek where a 

 spring issues, or where it flows into it from a near 



