Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
If the road is made as flat as the turning-off of surface-water will permit, it will be travelled upon in all its parts; while if it is crowned to a high arch, as is often the case, it will soon be found that the best place to drive is in the middle of the road, and foot-tracks and wheel-tracks will soon form slight channels or ruts which will lead water lengthwise along the road, and which will cause an undue amount of wear and washing.
Beyond the tracks I could see the murky water of Brushy Creek racing toward the river under the State Street bridge. "I believe," said I, "that the surface-water from above is showing the flow from the flume." "Yes," said Jim absently, "it must be about ready to break up. I hope we can get out of the valley before dark."
The sun was in the right quarter to produce the greatest possible effect. The unnumbered pools of surface-water that abound in the valley appeared at that distance like so many lakelets supplied by crystal fountains, as each one reflected the bright sun from its mirror-like surface; these all were inclosed in the richest setting of nature's green.
So level is a portion of the land on the summit, and so slight the elevation above the lake, that in wet seasons the surface-water seems almost as willing to go one way as the other; and on one occasion the upper streams of the Desplaines River were nearly permanently diverted toward the lake by a tornado that gathered up the water and scored the surface in its track toward the east.
I have pretty thoroughly described this small valley, and have also stated how large a portion of it is flooded with surface-water, and how large a portion of this water is infused with salt.
They were thus like dewdrops preserved from evaporation. The clammy fluid is intended to entrap insects, which, dying on the leaf, probably yield nutriment to the plant. During our second day on this extensive plain I suffered from my twenty-seventh attack of fever, at a part where no surface-water was to be found.
Another inconvenience is that there are no running streams, the rock being of so porous a nature that the surface-water everywhere penetrates its fissures; at least such is the character of the neighbourhood we visited, the only water being small springs trickling out close to the sea-beach.
Small lakes of accumulated surface-water are passed in depressions having no outlet; thickets and bulrushes are growing around the edges, and the surfaces of some are fairly black with multitudes of wild-ducks.
Besides superficial and subsoil drains, there is another method of disposing of superfluous surface-water, which, however, can rarely be practised, because the necessary conditions for its employment are not of frequent occurrence.
A number of stone shafts, descending from the upper floors, lead to a well-built stone conduit, measuring 1 metre by 1/2 metre, whose inner surface is lined with smooth cement. These shafts were for the purpose of leading into this main conduit the surface-water from the roofs of the palace buildings, and thus securing a periodical flushing of the drains.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking