USES OF WATER.
[Sidenote: The beauty of water.]
What a beautiful thing is water! How pure and clear, like a crystal!
How “sparkling and bright it is,” as you see its ripples in the sun!
How we admire it, as it is gathered in little dew-drops on the flowers
and leaves in the morning! What a beautiful mirror the water makes when
the wind is hushed, showing us on its smooth surface the trees, the
houses, and every thing upon the shore!
[Sidenote: Ice, snow, and frost.]
And what beauty water has when the cold turns it into crystals in the
ice, the snow, and the frost! It is the same pure, clean thing then as
it is when it runs in the brook, or forms the dew-drop, or falls in the
gentle shower.
[Sidenote: Water the world’s cleanser.]
How useful, too, water is! It is the world’s cleanser. It washes every
thing. See how dusty every thing looks after a long dry time. Even the
grass and the leaves are covered with dust. But let a brisk shower
come, and how changed the scene! The trees, the flowers, and the grass
look as clean, and fresh, and bright as the washed face of a beautiful
child.
And then how the animals love to wash themselves in the water! See the
dog rush into it, and then, on coming out, give himself a thorough
shaking. It would be well if all children would be as fond of being
clean as he is. It is amusing to see the canary bird take his morning
bath in his cup of water. How he makes the water fly as he flutters his
wings!
[Sidenote: The washing of the air.]
Did you ever think that the air every once in a while needs a washing?
It does, just as much as you do and every thing else in the world. Even
when it seems clean as you look up through it, there are some things
in it that would be very bad for us if they remained there. They would
produce disease in us. They would be injurious also to other animals,
and even to plants. The air, therefore, must every now and then have a
washing to purify it; and every time that it rains you can think of the
air as taking a shower-bath for this purpose. You see, then, how true
it is that water is the world’s cleanser. It washes every thing, even
the air.
[Sidenote: How plants drink.]
But, besides being the world’s cleanser, water is the world’s drink. It
is the drink of plants as well as of man and animals. The plants drink
it from the ground by the mouths in their roots. A great part of the
sap, as I have told you in Part I., is water.
[Sidenote: Water in fever.]
We use water so constantly as a drink that we do not think how good and
refreshing it is. We think of this once in a while when we happen to be
very thirsty. When one is parched with fever, he thinks of cold water
as the very best thing on the earth; and when he is asleep, he dreams
of the well or spring from which he drank so often in his childhood.
A lady who was sick with yellow fever, far away from home, in her
delirium talked continually about a pump that was behind a house she
had long lived in, some time before this, and kept calling for water
from that pump.
[Sidenote: Sea water.]
The salt water of the sea, you know, is not fit for drinking. And you
have heard of persons in a shipwreck escaping in a boat from a sinking
ship, and then living almost without food and water for many days. How
careful are they not to waste any of the water which they happen to
have! Each drinks but little, though they are suffering greatly with
thirst. And when it is all gone, they would give any thing for the
smallest draught of fresh water. So dreadful is the suffering from
thirst that water is almost the only thing which they think of. They
wish that it would rain, so that they might catch some water. There is
water all around them, but it seems to mock them with its briny waves.
It is not the water which they want; they know that it would do no good
to drink it.
[Sidenote: Feeling of the shipwrecked man about water.]
One who had been in a boat for some days without water said that it
seemed to him always after as if it was wrong to waste pure fresh
water, and he never could use it as freely as he did before his
shipwreck. How thankful should we be that God has given it to us so
abundantly that we can commonly use it without stint or measure. It is
one of his most precious gifts, and yet it is so common that, when we
want to speak of any thing as being very free and abundant, we say that
it is as free as water.
[Sidenote: Water in every thing.]
But we do not merely drink water. It is mixed up with every thing that
we eat. There is much water in all fruits. There is so much in the
watermelon that it gives it its name. It is almost all water, with a
little sugar in it. Much of the sap in plants and trees is water; so,
also, it is with the blood. It could not run in the arteries and veins
if there was not water in it. More than three quarters of your blood is
water. There is much water, too, in the air. So you see that water is
every where, just as the air is.
But I have not told you all the uses of water. The running water turns
the water-wheels by which the machinery in mills and factories is
put in motion. We sail about on the water in boats, and ships, and
steamers. The steam-engines are worked by water changed into steam.
[Sidenote: The multitudes of animals that live in water.]
We must not forget the multitudes of fishes and other animals that
live in the water, as we do in the air. There is a world of life in
the water. It is so much out of sight that we do not think much about
it. We only get glimpses of this water-world now and then, and do not
think how many animals there are that live in the brooks, and rivers,
and ponds, and seas. Besides the fishes that swim in the water, there
are multitudes of animals that live on the bottom. There are oysters,
and clams, and lobsters, that you are familiar with; and there are
multitudes of animals that live in their beautiful shell houses, some
of which are very small, and almost as countless often as the sands
with which they are mingled.
_Questions._--What is said about the beauty of water? What is said
about its being the world’s cleanser? Tell about the dog and the
canary bird. What is said about the air’s being washed? How do the
plants drink water? Do we commonly think how good a drink water is?
Tell about the lady sick with fever. What is said about the salt
water of the sea? What about the suffering from thirst so common with
shipwrecked persons? Tell about the feeling of one who had suffered
in this way. What is said about the abundance of water? What is said
about water’s being in every thing? How much of your blood is water?
Mention some more uses of water. What is said about the animals that
live in water?