SPRINGS 43 



barrels per second. I recently went many miles out 

 of my way to see the famous trout spring in Warren 

 County, New Jersey. This spring flows about one 

 thousand gallons of water per minute, which has a 

 uniform temperature of fifty degrees winter and 

 summer. It is near the Musconetcong Creek, which 

 looks as if it were made up of similar springs. On 

 the parched and sultry summer day upon which my 

 visit fell, it was well worth walking many miles 

 just to see such a volume of water issue from the 

 ground. I felt with the boy Petrarch, when he 

 first beheld a famous spring, that "were I master 

 of such a fountain I would prefer it to the finest of 

 cities.'' A large oak leans down over the spring 

 and affords an abundance of shade. The water does 

 not bubble up, but comes straight out with great 

 speed, like a courier with important news, and as if 

 its course underground had been a direct and an 

 easy one for a long distance. Springs that issue in 

 this way have a sort of vertebra, a ridgy and spine- 

 like centre that suggests the gripe and push there 

 is in this element. 



What would one not give for such a spring in 

 his back yard, or front yard, or anywhere near his 

 house, or in any of his fields? One would be 

 tempted to move his house to it, if the spring could 

 not be brought to the house. Its mere poetic value 

 and suggestion would be worth all the art and orna- 

 ment to be had. It would irrigate one's heart and 

 character as well as his acres. Then one might have 

 a Naiad Queen to do his churning and to saw his 



