184 VALUE OF WATER. 



habitation to innumerable tribes ; all that waters 

 the fields, and sustains the existence of every ve- 

 getable from the moss on the wall to the monarch 

 of the forest ; all that enters into the structure of 

 plants and of animals, or which bears their more 

 immediate nourishment on its tide, or cleanses, 

 softens, and comforts them by its ablution ; nay, 

 all that enters into those stones or gems, which 

 glitter so much, is brought on the wings of the 

 wind, mounts up through the viewless air; and 

 the more vigorously that the countless thousands 

 of active powers, natural or artificial, are working, 

 the more abundantly does the air supply them 

 with nature's most abundant, most refreshing, and 

 most valuable production. If you would know 

 the real value of water, ask a man when he is 

 stretched on his couch in the heat of a fever, and 

 when his throat is inflamed and swollen, so that it 

 will not do its office ; or if he cannot answer, then 

 ask him who sinks down under the ardours of the 

 mid-day heat, on the wide and burning sand of 

 Sahara, at many leagues distance from the little 

 dingy pool and the overshadowing palms : ques- 

 tion him as to the value of water, and, though 

 the charter of the world's wealth were in his keep- 

 ing, he would cheerfully give it for one little cup, 

 or even that he were sitting on the brink of one 

 of those stagnant ditches which we shun. 



As we do not see the particles of the atmosphere 

 as a whole, the particles of its two chief ingredients, 

 the oxygen and the hydrogen, or the particles of 

 water which it takes up in the process of evapora- 

 tion, we cannot know the nature of the agency by 

 which any of these are held together. The cohe- 

 sion of particles in the entire substance, as air, is 



