Springs

In the vicmity of the continents many springs are no doubt borne directly into the ooean, having no eartlüy liistory or careor at all, like a child that dies on the day of its birth. Off the coast of Florida many of these submarine springs have been discovered. It is a pleasant conception, that of the uliscientific folk, that the springs are fed directly by the sea, or the earth is full of veins and arteries that connectwith the great reservoir of waters. But when scienoe turns the conception over and makes the connection in the air - disclosing the great water main in the clouds, and that the mighty engine of the hydraiilie system of nature is the sun, the fact becomes more poetical, does it not ? This is one of the many cases wbere science, instead of curtailing the imagination, makes new and large demands upon it. The hilis are great sponges that do not and cannot hold the water that is precipitated upon them, but that let it filter through at the bottom. This is the way the sea has robbed the earth of its salts, its phosphorus, its lime, and many other mineral elements. It is found that the oldest upheavals, those sections of the country that have been longest exposed to the leaching and washing of the rains, are poorest in those substanoes that go to the making of the osseous framework of man and of the animáis. Wheat does not grow well there, and the men born and reared there are apt to have brittle bones and defective teeth. An important part of these men went down streani ages before they were born. The water of such sections is now soft and very pure, free froin mineral subptances, but not more wholesome on that account.