"And the big distillery?" queried Sue.
"I should think you would know about the big distilleries, yourself, Sue. Come and sit here by me, and you can see quite a piece of one of them."
Sue came and sat down by Johnny.
"Now look right ahead."
"I don't see any thing but the water, and a blue strip of land beyond."
"And which would the distillery have in it? land or water?"
"Why, water.—He means the sea."
"I mean the Atlantic Ocean for one of the distilleries, a part of which I see from here."
"What do you call that a distillery for?" asked Felix.
"Why, distilling is obtaining a liquor in a pure form, by vaporizing it, and then cooling the vapor back into liquid form. Vapor is pure liquid: no mineral substances can be taken up in it. I have a little apparatus at home for distilling water. I can take well-water, which has mineral substances in it, and obtain the water quite free from any thing else. That is what is going on from the oceans, and, in a smaller way, from the rivers, lakes, and ponds. The heat of the sun causes the water, which, you know, here at the ocean is very salt, and full of other impurities, to rise in pure vapor, and form clouds overhead. The winds carry the clouds over the land: they become condensed by cooling, and fall in rain. The rain, which is pure water, except for the little particles of various things floating in the air which it brings down with it, soaks into the ground, forming springs, and helps to swell the ponds and lakes and rivers, and so it gets mineral and other substances in it again, especially salt, which is found in small quantities in all spring-water, and this impure water is carried to the ocean again to be purified; that is, it is carried back to the great distillery, to be made into pure rain-water. What I can't make out is, what is to keep the ocean from getting too salt by and by, since considerable salt is always coming into it from the rivers. What do you think about it, Pierre?"