Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1859-03-10

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decomposes and putrifies even sooner than
fresh water, because it contains more organic
and foreign substances Without its waves
and tides, the ocean would soon become one
huge plain of corruption by which no living
thing could exist.
Most nations have been proud of their great
rivers. The Romans were proud Of their III
Der as an Englishman is of his Thames, or as
Monsieur Chatn is of the Seine above Paris +;
while the Martha, conveyed to Rome full thir-
ty miles from the Lake FucinuS, was the old
Latin's ideal of aqueous purity and beauty
lie did not stop at rivers though. He had
aquedncts which could discharge three hundred
and twenty-six millions of gallons of water in
to the city. They formed and still do form,
rivers in the streets These aqueducts were
two hundred and fifty miles in length i'm
mense covered ways supported on arches, and
built of solidest stone passing through the
country like gigantic arteries opening into that
wonderful heart of the world, that iron heart,
with its measured heat and stony strength, by
which all other nations pulsed and throbbed
Greece as well as Rome, made noble works for
obtaining good supply in her cities so did
ancient Mexico and Peru. The Mexicans,
indeed, had water-pipe to every house, and
an old water-god into the bargain-one Tia
loc. Eyerywhere-in mythology poetry, his
tory, and COmmerce-we find that water plays
a more important part than any other natural
element and a nation without an idealzed
stream would be nation without poem and
without history. Yet, some places are very
badly off For our Sole but excessive instance,
is the island of Gorea, which has not drop of
fresh water in it, and which is obliged to send
to Ham, twelve miles from the shore, on the
main land, for all it needs Yet the island is
reported healthy, in spite of the great want.
Thermal waters are generally perniciOus.-
One near Soracte killed all the early birds,
and the GeySers are not pleasant tea-urns.-
The waters at Baden Baden, Bath, and other
such places, may be very good medicines !; but
water should not be physic. UnwhOlesome
waters may usually be made better by boiling
and fltering, then agitating them in the air,
to get as much admiXture of the atmosphere
and its electricity as possible.
Water boils at two hundred and twelve de-
grceS, and freezes at Seventy-fye degrees be-
low the temperature of the human body-that
is, at thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. But it
may be cooled at least twenty degrees below
this without freezing 1t expands on freez,
ing, which is the reason why glass jugs and
bottles break when a ball of ice takes the
place of the water within them. This is the
reason, too, why frosty winter is so valua-
bic to the farmer The ice breaks up the SOIL
renders the rocks soluble, and fit food for
plants, supplying them with their ashes or IN
organic constituents, besides killing many Of
the grubs and Larvae Of destructive insects
which else would render many a titled acre
barren waste.
The quantity of rain which falls in Europe
varies as much as the rest Of the water statis-
tics. Most falls at Bergen and Seathwaite
in Cumberland, or perhaps, Kendall, in West
moreland stands next. The rain-guage has
measured Que hundred and fifty inches at
Seathwaite during the year ; but the average
for England is, in every favorable spot, from
eighteen to forty inches, rising to sixty inches
in more rainy districts, and from sixty TO eigh
ty-four in those which are rainier still. We
must not confound the quantity of rain which
falls in locality with the number Of rainy
days A deluge during one day and night will
wipe off large part of the score. Such delu-
ges are not uncommon. On the twenty-ffth
Of October, eighteen hundred and twenty-five,
thirty-two inches fell without a pause at sun
ny Genoa and once at Bombay six and a
half inches fell in one day at Cayenne, from
eight in the evening to six the next morning
ten inches fell and at Geneva six inches and
a.half fell in three hours. At Vera Cruz thir-
ty-seven inches fell in July, August and Sep
tember but only ifty-fve in the whole year
In England the numbers are highest for sum-
mer and autumn, lowest for spring and win
ter while in Russia the rain which falls in
summer is thrice the volume of that which falls
in winter.
If, as some say, ironis the bone of the earth,
then is water the blood the ceaselesS ebb and
flow of which, the endless evaporation and
return, corresponding to the throb and pulse
of the human heart and its lifeblood. The
very air, even when crisp and dry, has one
fifth per cent of moisture in it, and we our
selves have seventy-6ye per cent. of water in
u.s. When we have parted with it all, we be-
come those desiccated skeletons which fall to
dust in the open air. So long as we retain
the cohesive mould and form of humanity, 50
long is the watery principle in force. With
out it, the whole earth, HimaiayaS and Andes
included would be but handful of dust--a
gigantic heap of dry powder, on which not
even the most rndimentary lichen could exist.
The ancients built affairs to Diana, and wor-
shipped the mother Moon. For Diana and
the moon emblemised the water principle with
out which nature would have no plastic force,
and the earth no form, no life, and no lowell
ness-Househoid Words.
"PAPA, can q person catch anything if he
don't run after it ?D = No" "WeIl, then how