STUDIES IN NATURE 



pumped up, or comes into the house somehow, 

 and we have not asked from whence it conies. 

 Now, whether the water we drink comes from 

 far or near, from the hills above us or the 

 ground beneath us, it all originally fell from 

 the clouds as rain or snow. We know how it 

 got into the air, for we studied that question 

 when we talked about water-vapour. We must 

 now try to find out what happens to it after it 

 falls to the ground and before it reaches our 

 houses. 



In the first place it is clear, since it comes 

 to us in so many different ways, that a good 

 many different things may occur to it. It may, 

 as we said in our chapter on the Earth, run into 

 little rivulets, and these collect into larger 

 streams, and so grow into the river from which 

 we take our water. Again, some of the rain 

 may sink into the ground and travel very slowly 

 through the soil, and even gradually find a way 

 through some of the rocks, until, coming to a 

 rock through which it cannot pass, or finding a 

 crack down which it can get away, it reappears 

 to us in a spring of water bubbling out of the 

 hill-side. If the rain that falls on the ground 

 cannot run away in streams nor sink into the 

 earth, it collects in ponds, which are only big 

 puddles, and from there it gradually passes 

 away as vapour into the air. Sometimes it will 

 sink so far into the ground that we have to dig 

 wells to reach it, and put in pumps to bring it 



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