The person in full enjoyment of health rarely ever appreciates it to
the fullness that he will on being deprived of it and have its welcome
return.
The bounties of Nature are so great and common that they fail to
attract our attention to the extent of some trifles that come new into
our way from day to day. One of the greatest provisions of Nature,
as universal as air and Earth, is the millions of springs gushing up
through the pores of the Earth in every country and clime. To make
this provision of fresh water ample, needs very large reservoirs for
supplies. The amplitude of this reservoir, if the situation is as
claimed in this book, it is believed everybody will admit. To prove
that this supply comes from such a general source a class of witnesses
must be brought out. One of the most important must be the feeding
of our great lakes on high altitudes. These great bodies of fresh
water are universally credited with enormous depths of pure, clear
water, such as never could exist as the result of shed water. Many of
them practically have no streams feeding them, but, without regard to
weather conditions of seasons, pour forth enormous bodies of water
without change of volume. Lake Superior will be taken again as a
prominent witness. Here is an inland sea, on the highest ground between
the ocean and Rocky Mountains, so large that vessels can sail on it for
days out of sight of land. Not a river of any importance flows into it,
the country around it not admitting the formation of a large stream.
The water during the hottest summer months sustains a uniform
temperature of forty-five degrees, and is as clear as crystal.
The outflow from this lake furnishes the great river passing through
the Sault Ste. Marie, through which passes a greater tonnage of vessels
than through the Suez canal, and most of them of very large draft. This
river with the combined waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron passes
on through the Detroit River and Lake Erie and over Niagara Falls. It
is also claimed that from Lake Superior a large subterranean stream
flows into Lake Ontario from which lake the stream in junction with
Niagara river forms the St. Lawrence, the river so copious in its flow
as to be immune from floods.
This question is in point: Where does this enormous supply of water
come from to supply Lake Superior?
Without taking single witnesses, we will call up groups. Take the
various great lakes of the world, Europe, Asia and Africa, where all
great rivers seem to have their sources in some lake.
As to rainfall if that originates these streams, and if so, how is
their flow kept so uniform, or is it from a steady, unfailing source,
as would come from the inside ocean of supply?
Lakes of enormous depth exist in the Sierra Nevada, and Rocky
Mountains, as Pyramid Lake, Donner, Tahoe and Crater Lakes. In our
Adirondacks are thousands of lakes, in Vermont and New Hampshire,
and in the White Mountain region, throughout the mountain portions
of Maine, in West Virginia, and the Carolinas, and in other high and
mountainous sections lakes abound. As we come to the low country there
are few witnesses to call, as the only body of water worth mentioning
is in Utah, that lake being salt and below the level of the ocean.
While the subject of this chapter is introduced under the heading of
springs, it may seem out of place to bring in these great lakes,
assuming that they are of the same class. But there is no doubt
whatever of their being nothing more or less than mammoth springs.
Next to the great lake system of the world, may be called in evidence
the atolls so prevalent in the southern Pacific Ocean and growing also
in other places on the globe. These peculiar features appear to have
been built up from the tops of submarine mountains or old craters that
have been filled with fresh water, from which structures of coral have
grown till they reached the surface. The formation of these atolls
being generally elongated, or in chains like mountain ranges, is
suggestive of the same influence in their inception as the upheaval of
mountain chains on land surfaces by hydraulic pressure.
This may be a good place to ask where the fresh water supply comes from
to produce these atolls. That they are produced by fresh water there
can be no question, as the work of coral is never performed without
an abundance of this element to build through. That the bottom of the
ocean has many subterranean rivers nobody will dispute. That nearly
every island in the ocean has springs of fresh water, none can deny.
Where does it come from? Many of these islands have thermal springs,
like Iceland with its geysers of many varieties. Some with common
fresh water, and nearby springs of mineral water. One familiar to this
region is Block Island with both fresh water and mineral springs, and
little lakes on the high ground alive with fresh water fish. Are they
supplied with rain water?
Mount Desert is a very good witness to call. Here is an island eighteen
miles in diameter surrounded by salt water with an elevation of 1,800
feet, and 1,200 feet above the ocean are three fine lakes, Eagle Lake,
Crooked Lake, and Echo Lake. In which lakes are trout weighing eight or
ten pounds. On this small island are to be found thousands of springs
pouring out from every crack and crevice. The water is pure and clear
as in all such cases. Where does it come from? No more generous gift to
man and all animated nature, has been bestowed by Providence than the
universal distribution of springs all over the world.
Within twenty rods of the top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in
the New England States, flows out a copious spring of water. The whole
mountain system is full of springs and lakes. The entire Adirondack
region is in the same condition. It is safe to leave it to the reader
who has ever been out of sight of the smoke of his own chimney to
think of the abundance of instances where he has seen lakes and springs
on the tops of high hills, where no shed water to any extent could
reach them, and wonder how they came there.
To assume that rains sink into the ground and form water supplies,
seems incredible when the experience of any man who has ever dug a
well or sunk a shaft in a mountain, or tunneled under a hill ought to
disprove such an idea at once. As we dig down we always meet water,
and the deeper we get the more we find. Where does the water from the
surface turn around to come back? Some of the water coming up is salt,
some fresh, some hot, but mostly of a uniform coolness of about fifty
degrees.