172 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Purity of 
brook water. 
The river's 
source, 
The catch- 
basin. 
generally bright and clear, and not unlike the 
Catskill stream. Indeed, Iam not so patriotic 
that I would arrogate all purity to my own 
country. Ihave described the Catskill brook 
only because it is typical of the river on its 
Mountain Track. Fortunately there are many 
streams like it on the face of the globe. 
The source of a stream is often the cause of 
some disappointment to the finder of it. Some- 
times it fulfils expectation, and is a small basin 
of bubbling water rising from beneath a huge 
rock. Its overflow forms the rivulet that finally 
develops into the brook. The water in such a 
case usually comes from a subterranean spring 
and flows cold and clear, following some vein or 
fissure in the rock. In Scotland the source is 
usually a ‘ well-eye,” as in Switzerland a glaci- 
er; but in America the beginning of the stream 
is not always so simple or so poetic. Many 
of the brooks when traced to their origin are 
found to come from small lakes fed by subter- 
ranean springs, or more often from a weedy, 
rush-grown marsh, which acts as a catch-basin 
for many small surface drainings. The haunt of 
the coot and the frog is hardly the ideal birth- 
place of the clear, tossing brook, yet a great 
many streams come from just such sedgy pools. 
