A SPRING RELISH. 199 



evidently some other very wet spell, of which this is 

 a tradition, lies far hehind us. Something like the 

 drought of summer is beginning upon the earth ; the 

 great floods have dried up ; the rivers are slowly 

 shrinking ; the water is penetrating farther and far- 

 ther into the cooling crust of the earth, and what 

 was ample to drench and cover its surface, even to 

 make a Noah's flood, will be but a drop in the bucket 

 to the vast interior of the cooled sphere. 



