LESSON XXIII.

WHY THE WATER OF THE SEA IS SALTY.

1. Very many years ago there lived in Europe a wise man who was all the time trying in his own way to make new discoveries in nature. He had noticed, as perhaps many of you have done, that in old teakettles which have been used for a long time there is often a crust of stone about the sides and bottoms.

"It is certainly stone," said he. "Now there has been nothing but water put into this kettle, and whence has this stone come?"

2. He studied the matter carefully and for a long time, and then he came to the conclusion that the water had by boiling been changed into stone. To prove that this was true, he took clear, fresh water from a spring and boiled it in a clean, new kettle. After a time, just as he expected, the sides and bottom of the kettle were covered with a layer of stone.

3. "No one can now dispute the fact," said he. "Stone is made from hot water. Could we only produce heat enough, all the water of the ocean might be turned into solid rock."

This was a very strange conclusion, you will think; and so it was. But where did the stone in the teakettle come from if it was not made out of the water?

4. Put a little salt into a basin of water. After a little while you will see no salt in it, but all of the water will taste salty. The salt is so nearly the color of the water that one cannot see any change in the liquid—it looks as

pure and fresh as when it was first drawn from the spring. But taste the smallest drop of the water and you will taste the salt also; for the salt has been divided into a great number of little particles which float all through the water-thousands of them in every drop-and make it salty.

5. If you had put indigo instead of salt into the water, every drop of the water would have been bluish, because it held many particles of indigo. In the same way, a little sugar will sweeten a great deal of water. The sap or juice of the sugar cane or the sugar maple is nothing but water with many fine particles of sugar in it. When the water is boiled away, these particles remain behind as so much sugar. By boiling salt water we also obtain salt. The water goes away in the form of vapor or steam, and leaves the solid matter behind.

6. If you had weighed the water before you put the salt into it, and had caught all the steam and held it until it had cooled into water again, you would have found, on weighing it a second time, that no water had been lost; and you would have found that it did not taste of the salt. Also, if you had weighed the salt before putting it into the water, and then again after the water had been all boiled away, you would have discovered that none of it had been lost.

7. There is a great deal of salt in the ground. There are also many other things which dissolve in water. When the rain falls from the clouds, it sinks into the ground and takes up these substances in small particles, just as you have seen water dissolve sugar and salt. When the water bubbles up in springs and runs down the rivers into the sea, it still holds the little particles of salt, or stone, or

whatever they may be, and adds so much more-however little it may be to that which the sea already contains. Thus it is that the water of the sea has become salty.

8. When salty water is boiled, what becomes of the water? It escapes in the form of vapor or steam. What becomes of the salt? It is left behind in the vessel. When water that is full of particles of stone boils away, what becomes of the stone?

9. You will have no trouble now in telling where the stone which is found in teakettles comes from. You are wiser in that respect than the wise man of whom I have told you, for you know that stone is not made of water.

10. What forces the water to leave the particles of salt and other matter which it has gathered from the earth? It is heat. It is by heat that it is driven off in the form of steam or vapor. This vapor goes up into the air. When it there becomes so thick that we can see it, we call it a fog or a cloud.

11. The clouds are blown by the wind into colder regions of air, and the vapor condenses into drops and comes back to the earth in the form of rain. The raindrops sink into the ground again, and once more gather little particles of salt, or stone, or some other mineral, which they carry down to the sea. Then they are again turned into vapor by the heat of the sun, and again driven over the earth by the wind, to water the parched ground and to gladden the farmer's heart by making his crops grow abundantly. And this change is going on every day, all over the world; yet not a drop of water, not a particle of matter of any kind, is gained or lost.

12. Now you not only know why a layer of stone is found in old teakettles, but you have learned why the

water of the sea is salty, what becomes of steam or vapor, and what causes rain. By thinking a moment, you will also be able to tell why we have salt springs and sulphur springs, and why the waters in different springs and wells are so unlike.

4. "To run right under the window,
And sing me fast asleep;

With soft steps and a tender sound,
Over the grass to creep.

5. “Make it run down the hill, mother,
With a leap like a tinkling bell,
So fast I can never catch the leaf
That into its fountain fell.

6.

"Make it as wild as a frightened bird,
As crazy as a bee,

With a noise like the baby's funny laugh-
That's the brook for me!"

SELFISHNESS. A STORY OF GERMANY.

There is told in Germany a strange story of a rich but very selfish old man who lived a long time ago in a handsome palace not far from the river Rhine. He was sometimes called by the poor people whose homes were on his lands, Bishop Hatto. Whether he had ever been a bishop, I very much doubt; for certain it is that, at the time of the story, he was a hard-hearted, cruel landlord, caring for no one else so long as he was able to get what he wanted for himself.

2. One summer the rain came down in torrents and con