214 WJMCGEE OUTLINES OF HYDROLOGY 



fats, etcetera) are decomposed in such manner as to yield HoO and CO^, 

 the latter in quantities affecting the atmosphere in buildings and even in 

 cities, and the former in a corresponding ratio which has received less 

 attention ; and certain organisms of arid regions have acquired the faculty 

 of dispensing with free water, apparently depending wholly on this inter- 

 nal source of HgO for the maintenance of their vital fimctions, as in the 

 case of the desert mice recorded by Coville. While vegetal assimilation 

 is generally confined to simpler compounds, certain desert plants living 

 on hydrated rock-matter have acquired highly developed structures and 

 vital processes adapted to the arid conditions (including notably abun- 

 dant starch and cellulose in their tissues), and apparently produce (or 

 reproduce) at least enough of the HgO. employed in the solution and elab- 

 oration of substance and maintenance of circulation to prolong their vital 

 functioning through rainless months and years. 



Considered as a planetary constituent, the water contributed by organic 

 agency is not only inconsiderable in amount but probably a mere restora- 

 tion of HgO temporarily tied up in terrestrial compounds; yet, regarded 

 as a planetary process, the generation (or regeneration) is most signifi- 

 cant, in that it marks a distinct type of interrelation in which organic 

 activity attains a higher order of autonomy and initiates a more effective 

 control of potential and adjustment of internal relations to external rela- 

 tions than pertains to the planes of stream-flow and circulation, thougli 

 again the difference is of degree rather than kind. The general process 

 may be denoted hydrogeny; for, even if it involves (as seems probable) 

 nothing more than the liberation of locked-up material, it appears to 

 open a natural way toward the perpetuation of the ontosphere through 

 its own functions in a manner somewhat like the ways in which the 

 hydrosphere perpetuates the balance among its own states and divisions 

 through temperature control, and in which streams perpetuate their own 

 valleys through rock-transfer. In relation to the external, stream-work 

 is ephemeral, organic agency individual and generational; while the 

 hydrogenetic function spans secular time and embraces latent poten- 

 tiality. 



Applications of Hydrology 

 functions of the psychosphere 



Viewed broadly, it is the function of organized intelligence to control 

 natural powers— the powers comprising both molar movements and those 

 molecular motions determining the properties of materials, the means of 

 control including those suggested by natural interrelations, and the organ- 



