2 THE FORMS OF WATER IN 



backwards, we find it from time to time joined bv 

 tributaries which swell its waters. The river of course 

 becomes smaller as these tributaries are passed. It 

 shrinks first to a brook, then to a stream ; this again 

 divides itself into a number of smaller streamlets, 

 ending in mere threads of water. These constitute 

 the source of the river, and are usually found among 

 hills. 



4. Thus the Severn has its source in the Welsh 

 Mountains ; the Thames in the Cotswold Hills ; the 

 Danube in the hills of the Black Forest ; the Rhine and 

 the Rhone in the Alps ; the Ganges in the Himalaya 

 Mountains; the Euphrates near Mount Ararat; the 

 Garonne in the Pyrenees ; the Elbe in the Giant Moun- 

 tains of Bohemia ; the Missouri in the Rocky Mountains, 

 and the Amazon in the Andes of Peru. 



5. But it is quite plain that we have not yet reached 

 the real beginning of the rivers. Whence do the 

 earliest streams derive their water P A brief residence 

 among the mountains would prove to you that they are 

 fed by rains. In dry weather you would find the 

 streams feeble, sometimes indeed quite dried up. In 

 wet weather you would see them foaming torrents. In 

 general these streams lose themselves as little threads 

 of water upon the hill sides ; but sometimes you may 

 {race a river to a definite spring. The river Albula in 

 Switzerland, for instance, rushes at its origin in con- 

 siderable volume from a mountain side. But you very 



