St Nicholas [serial] . scanty thread of water strung along agreat, rambling bed of sand, to restrain DameNature from revoking their licenses to run andturning them into cattle-ranches. No wonder that respectable fish refuse tohave anything to do with such streams, and re-fuse tempting offers of free worms, free trans-portation, and protection from the fatal trying to raise a family of little fish, andnot knowing one day where water is comingfrom the next! Not but what there is water enough at times;only, those rivers of the great plains, like thePlatte and the Kansas and the Arkansa
St Nicholas [serial] . scanty thread of water strung along agreat, rambling bed of sand, to restrain DameNature from revoking their licenses to run andturning them into cattle-ranches. No wonder that respectable fish refuse tohave anything to do with such streams, and re-fuse tempting offers of free worms, free trans-portation, and protection from the fatal trying to raise a family of little fish, andnot knowing one day where water is comingfrom the next! Not but what there is water enough at times;only, those rivers of the great plains, like thePlatte and the Kansas and the Arkansas, areso wasteful of their supply in the spring that byJuly they are gasping for a shower. So, part of the year they revel in luxury, and during therest they go shabby — like shiftless people. But the irrigation engineers have lately dis-covered something wonderful about even thesedespised rivers. During-the very driest sea-sons, when the stream is apparently quite dry,there is still a great body of water running in. the sand. Like a vast sponge, the sand holdsthe water, yet it flows continually, just as if itwere in plain sight, but more slowly of volume may be estimated by the depth andbreadth of the sand. One pint of it will holdthree quarters of a pint of water. This is calledthe underground How, and is peculiar to this i898.] QUEER AMERICAN RIVERS. 299 class of rivers. By means of ditches this watermay be brought to the surface for irrigation. Scattered among the foot-hills of the Rockiesare rivers still more wilful in their habits. In-stead of keeping to their duties in a methodicalway, they rush their annual work through in amonth or two; then they take long months together they carry no water at all;and one may plant and build and live andsleep in their deserted beds — but beware!Without warning, they resume active on a Sunday, or in the middle of thenight, a storm-cloud visits the mountains. Thereis a roar, a tearing, a crash
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidstnicholasserial251dodg
