182 STREAMS 



to decay, the torrents of autumn descend ; and the 

 "wash" of the season, rolls onward to the sea, bear - 

 ing the corruption along with it. There the unplea- 

 sant 'and pernicious substances continue united with 

 it ; but no sooner has it passed the inconceivably 

 fine but hardly discernible filter of the atmosphere, 

 than all its impurities are removed, and the water, 

 alone and unadulterated, remains there, till by 

 the working of that very atmosphere which has 

 lifted it up, it shall descend more soft and limpid 

 than the sweetest spring that ever flowed from the 

 rock. " ,<"' 



It is owing to this property of the atmosphere 

 that we have springs, and streams, and rivers. 

 The Thames, for all its wealth, and the Mississippi 

 and the St. Lawrence, notwithstanding their ma- 

 jesty and the immense volume of waters which 

 they constantly roll to the sea, all originate in the 

 clouds, and may be said to flow from the heavens. 

 But the real sources of them are in those places 

 from which the evaporative power of the atmo- 

 sphere drinks them up, or rather perhaps in those 

 natural operations by which the elements of water 

 are loosened from other connexions, and left free to 

 combine and form that all-refreshing substance. 

 While therefore we cannot avoid being pleased with 

 the bright and lively rill which dances from rock to 

 rock to the murmuring cadences of its own music ; 

 while we cannot avoid lingering "to pore upon 

 the brook which babbles by" the gnarled roots of 

 the aged tree, which winds round the church-yard 

 with its grey stones, which steals through the 

 shade of the osiers, with softer and more silent 

 wing than the owl does through the coppice, which 

 slumbers in the mill-pond, until obedient to the 



