CHAPTER LXXV RUNNING WATERS

“I HAVE been told,” said Emile, “that the Rhone empties its waters into the sea.”

“The Rhone does run into the sea,” returned his uncle. “It pours into it every second five million liters of water.”

“Receiving so much water continually, does not the sea end by overflowing², like a basin, when it is too full?”

“You are out in your reckoning, my dear child. The Rhone is not the only river that goes to the sea. In France alone there are the Garonne, Loire, Seine, and many less important ones. And that is only a very small part of the streams that flow into the sea. All the rivers in the world join it, absolutely all. The Amazon, in South America, is 1400 leagues long, and ten leagues wide at its mouth. What an immense quantity of water it must furnish!

“Imagine that all the streams in the world, small as well as large, the tiniest brooks⁴ no less than the enormous rivers, flow unceasingly into the sea. You know the little brook³ with the crabs⁵. In certain places Emile can jump across it; scarcely anywhere is the water over his knees. Well, the brook goes to the sea exactly as the Amazon does; every second it casts its few liters of water into it; that is all it can do. But it does not dare, tiny little stream, to make the voyage alone and go and find the sea, the immense sea, all by itself. It meets company on the way, joins its thread of clear water to stronger streams which become rivers by joining their forces; the sea-going-river receives tributary⁷ streams, and the sea, in receiving the river, drinks the tiny brook.”

“All running waters,” said Jules, “brooks, torrents⁸, streams, rivers, run into the sea without a break, and that takes place all over the world, so that every second the sea receives incalculable volumes of water. So I come back to Emile’s question: How is it that, continually receiving so much water, the sea does not overflow¹?”

“If, when full, a reservoir receives from a spring just as much as it lets out through some opening, can this reservoir overflow, even when water is always coming in?”

“Certainly not: losing as much as it receives, it must always keep the same level.”

“It is the same with the sea. It loses just as much as it gains, and therefore its level always remains⁹ the same. Brooks, torrents, streams, rivers, all run into the sea; but brooks, torrents, streams, and rivers also come from the sea. They carry back to the immense reservoir what they took from it, and not a drop more.”

“If the crab⁶ brook comes from the sea,” interposed Emile, “as you say, its water ought to be salt; but I know very well it is not, in the least.”

“Certainly it is not salt; but the brook does not come out of the sea as the water of a ditch comes from a reservoir. In coming from the sea, before becoming what it is, the brook has first passed through the air as clouds.”

“As clouds?”

“As clouds, my little friend. Let us recall something I told you a while ago.

“The heat of the sun causes water to evaporate; it reduces it to something invisible, to vapor¹⁰ that is dissipated in the air. Seas present a surface three times that of the dry land. Over these immensities there is constantly taking place an enormous evaporation¹¹, raising into the air a part of the waters of the sea. The vapor thus formed becomes clouds; the clouds are borne in all directions, letting down snow and rain; this rain and melted snow penetrate¹² the ground, filter down and give birth to springs, which gradually, by their union, become brooks, streams, and rivers.”

“I see why the water of brooks is not salt,” said Jules, “although it comes from the sea. When you put salt water in a plate in the sun, only the water goes away; the salt remains. The vapor that rises from the sea is not salt, because the salt does not go with it when it forms. So streams fed by snow and rain that fall from the clouds cannot be salt.”

“What you have just told us is very remarkable¹³, Uncle,” observed Claire. “All water-courses, rivers, streams, torrents, brooks, come from and return to the sea.”

“They come from the sea, an inexhaustible reservoir that covers with its waters a surface three times larger than that of all the continents joined together; from the sea, whose abysses go down at some places to the depth of 14 kilometers, and receive unceasingly the tribute of all the water-courses of the world, without ever being taxed beyond their capacity. The enormous surface of the sea furnishes the air with vapor which turns into clouds; later these clouds dissolve in rain and, chased by the wind, travel like immense watering-pots over the ground, rendering¹⁴ it fertile. In their turn, rain and snow, precipitated¹⁵ by the clouds, give birth to the rivers that carry their waters to the sea. In that way a continual current is effected which, starting from the sea, returns to the sea, after having traveled through the atmosphere in the form of clouds, watered the earth as rain, and crossed continents as rivers.

“The sea is the common reservoir of the waters. Rivers, springs, fountains, every little brooklet¹⁶, all come from and all return to it. The water of a dewdrop, the water that circulates in the sap of plants, the water that forms beads¹⁷ of perspiration¹⁸ on our foreheads, all come from the sea and are on their way back to it. However small the little drop, do not fear that it will lose its way. If the arid¹⁹ sand drinks it up, the sun will know how to draw it out again and send it to rejoin the vapor in the atmosphere and, sooner or later, to re?nter the ocean-basin. Nothing is lost, nothing escapes the eye of God, who has measured the oceans in the hollow of His hand, and knows the number of their drops of water.”

1 overflow   

v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出

参考例句：

• The overflow from the bath ran on to the floor.浴缸里的水溢到了地板上。
• After a long period of rain,the river may overflow its banks.长时间的下雨天后，河水可能溢出岸来。

2 overflowing   

n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The stands were overflowing with farm and sideline products. 集市上农副产品非常丰富。
• The milk is overflowing. 牛奶溢出来了。

3 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

4 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 crabs   

n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• As we walked along the seashore we saw lots of tiny crabs. 我们在海岸上散步时看到很多小蟹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fish and crabs scavenge for decaying tissue. 鱼和蟹搜寻腐烂的组织为食。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

7 tributary   

n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的

参考例句：

• There was a tributary road near the end of the village.村的尽头有条岔道。
• As the largest tributary of Jinsha river,Yalong river is abundant in hydropower resources.雅砻江是金沙江的最大支流，水力资源十分丰富。

8 torrents   

n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断

参考例句：

• The torrents scoured out a channel down the hill side. 急流沿着山腰冲刷出一条水沟。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Sudden rainstorms would bring the mountain torrents rushing down. 突然的暴雨会使山洪暴发。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

10 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

11 evaporation   

n.蒸发，消失

参考例句：

• Be careful not to lose too much liquid by evaporation.小心不要因蒸发失去太多水分。
• Our bodies can sweat,thereby losing heat by evaporation.我们的身体能出汗，由此可以蒸发散热。

12 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

13 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

14 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

15 precipitated   

v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀

参考例句：

• His resignation precipitated a leadership crisis. 他的辞职立即引发了领导层的危机。
• He lost his footing and was precipitated to the ground. 他失足摔倒在地上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 brooklet   

n. 细流, 小河

参考例句：

17 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

18 perspiration   

n.汗水；出汗

参考例句：

• It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了，我的衣服被汗水湿透了。
• The perspiration was running down my back.汗从我背上淌下来。

19 arid   

adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的

参考例句：

• These trees will shield off arid winds and protect the fields.这些树能挡住旱风,保护农田。
• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。