40 PEPACTON 



engine of the hydraulic system of nature is the sun, 

 — the fact becomes even more poetical, does it not? 

 This is one of the many cases where science, instead 

 of curtailing the imagination, makes new and large 

 demands upon it. 



The hills are great sponges that do not and can- 

 not hold the water that is precipitated upon them, 

 but that let it filter through at the bottom. This 

 is the way the sea has robbed the earth of its vari- 

 ous salts, its potash, its lime, its magnesia, and 

 many other mineral elements. It is found that the 

 oldest upheavals, those sections of the country that 

 have been longest exposed to the leeching and wash- 

 ing of the rains, are poorest in those substances that 

 go to the making of the osseous framework of man 

 and of the animals. Wheat does not grow well 

 there, and the men born and reared there are apt to 

 have brittle bones. An important part of those 

 men went down stream ages before they were born. 

 The water of such sections is now soft and free from 

 mineral substances, but not more wholesome on that 

 account. 



The gigantic springs of the country that have 

 not been caught in any of the great natural basins 

 are mostly confined to the limestone region of the 

 Middle and Southern States, — the valley of Vir- 

 ginia and its continuation and deflections into Ken- 

 tucky, Tennessee, Northern Alabama, Georgia, and 

 Florida. Through this belt are found the great 

 caves and the subterranean rivers. The waters 

 have here worked like enormous moles, and have 



