SPRINGS 39 



have seen the patriarchs of the tribe of an old and 

 much-fished stream, seven or eight enormous fel- 

 lows, 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, 

 copious ones, in many places the fresh water rising 

 up through the heavier salt as through a rock, and 

 affording 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, or that the earth is full of veins or arteries 

 that connect with the great reservoir of waters. 

 But when science turns the conception over and 

 makes the connection in the air, — disclosing the 

 great water-main in the clouds, and that the mighty 



