WATER TRANSMITS POWER EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
WATER AS AN ARTIST.
If we will stop and remember for a moment how often the painter and poet dwell upon variety in landscapes, we shall appreciate more fully the artistic work of water. We have already seen that by dissolving the rocks, the way was prepared for all verdure, and not less truly did it round the hills and carve the gorges, as well as smooth the outlines, which add so much to nature’s charms. Nor is this all. In the running brook, the sparkling cascade, the white foam of the cataract, the deep blue of the sea, the matchless variety and beauty of the clouds, we may behold the grandest exhibitions of color and form. There is endless variation in the tint, light and shade of water, owing to many causes. That this is true one will easily see in studying Church’s “Icebergs,” a picture of wonderful color and beauty, although one would scarcely expect these qualities in such a subject. Time would fail to describe the numberless forms of beauty displayed by water; it glitters in the dewdrop, shimmers in the wave, rounds the cheek of beauty, colors the rose, and paints the rainbow on the arching sky.
WATER AS A LABORER.
Water was early made to labor for man. Of the various forms of energy which he employs, animal, steam, electricity, wind, water, the last is probably the most inexpensive. It is a singular fact that all national progress and efficiency have depended largely upon proximity of water. Seas, indenting bays, sounds, rivers early bore the commerce of the world, and formed the medium for interchange of ideas, inventions, arts and literature. The little peninsulas of Italy and Greece, with their broken coast-line, developed a hardy race of seamen, who penetrated to the remotest parts of the then known world. The story of the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece is one of the earliest, as it is one of the most beautiful traditions of antiquity.
CAPILLARY ATTRACTION—WATER AND QUICKSILVER.
Look at that sturdy little island in the north Atlantic, whose people have so utilized the ocean that “she has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous strain of the martial airs of England.” We build many hopes for the prosperity of our own country upon the fact of our extensive coast-line, which gives us one mile of shore-line to every one hundred and four square miles of surface, while that of Europe, which is far more favored in this respect than any other division of the world, has only one mile of coast for every two hundred and twenty-four square miles of surface. Water furnishes the most convenient and mobile instrument for applying gravity. As it flows on its way to the sea, everywhere it is made to turn the thousand busy wheels of industry, so that it used to be said that every pound of water in the Blackstone and Merrimac rivers did a pound of work before it reached the sea. The physical property of water which makes it in this connection so useful is, that it presses equally in all directions; it can therefore be adjusted with great ease to the sinuosities of tubes, water-wheels and kindred appliances. We also use it as a convenient power for obtaining pressure by means of the hydrostatic press.
THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS—PRESSING COTTON.