The ocean is the home of the water. The water would always remain in the ocean if it could, but the sun and air are continually at work stealing little particles away and sending them on long journeys.
The water particles are so small as they rise from the ocean that we cannot see them. By and by they crowd together and make the clouds that float across the sky. As soon as the clouds meet colder air, the little water particles rush together and thus become larger and larger until they grow so heavy that they can no longer float in the air, but must fall. Some of them fall into the ocean again, but others drop upon the land.
The raindrops that reach the land have many sorts of stories to tell before they again get back to the ocean. Some of them are at once snatched up again and are started upon another journey. The thirsty air, whether over the ocean or over the land, is ever in search of water particles.
If the air is very cold, the clouds turn to snow instead of rain. The feathery flakes fall slowly through the air and form a soft white mantle over the earth. Those that fall on lofty mountains form great banks which may not entirely melt and turn to water until late in the summer.
The raindrops that fall where the slopes are steep, where Nature has grown little vegetation, or where men have destroyed the earth cover, have little to detain them and are soon on their way back to their home. In their hasty journey they do much damage to the unprotected soil.
George J. Young
The cool and shady stream before men came and cut the trees away so that the hot sun could get at it.
If the drops fall upon gentle slopes, or where there are marshes and lakes, or upon the forest with its decaying vegetation, or upon deep beds of gravel and sand, they are a long time getting back to the ocean.