SPRINGS. 49 



bank, and you have found a most likely place for 

 trout. They deposit their spawn there in the fall, 

 warm their noses there in winter, and cool themselves 

 there in summer. I have seen the patriarchs of the 

 tribe of an old and much-fished stream, seven or eight 

 enormous fellows, congregated in such a place. The 

 boys found it out and went with a bag and bagged 

 them all. In another place a trio of large trout, that 

 knew and despised all the arts of the fishermen, took 

 up their abode in a deep, dark hole in the edge of 

 the wood, that had a spring flowing into a shallow 

 part of it. In midsummer they were wont to come 

 out from their safe retreat and bask in the spring, 

 their immense bodies but a few inches under water. 

 A youth, who had many times vainly sounded their 

 dark hiding-place with his hook, happening to come 

 along with his rifle one day, shot the three, one after 

 another, killing them by the concussion of the bullet 

 on the water immediately over them. 



The ocean itself is known to possess springs, copi- 

 ous ones, in many places the fresh water rising up 

 through the heavier salt as through a rock, and afford- 

 ing supplies to vessels at the surface. Off the coast 

 of Florida many of these submarine springs have 

 been discovered, the outlet, probably, of the streams 

 and rivers that disappear in the "sinks" of that State. 



It is a pleasant conception, that of the unscien- 

 tific folk, that the springs are fed directly by the sea, 

 ar that the earth is full of veins or arteries that con- 

 nect with the great reservoir of waters. But when 

 4 



