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Only wide enough for a barca and two gondolas to pass this canal of mine; only deep enough to let a wine barge slip through; so narrow you must go all the way back to the lagoon if you would turn your gondola; so short you can row through it in five minutes; every inch of its water-surface part of everything about it, so clear are the reflections; full of moods, whims, and fancies, this wave space one moment in a broad laugh coquetting with a bit of blue sky peeping from behind a cloud, its cheeks dimpled with sly undercurrents, the next swept by flurries of little winds, soft as the breath of a child on a mirror; then, when aroused by a passing boat, breaking out into ribbons of color swirls of twisted doorways, flags, awnings, flower-laden balconies, black-shawled Venetian beauties all upside down, interwoven with strips of turquoise sky and green waters a bewildering, intoxicating jumble of tatters and tangles, maddening in detail, brilliant in color, harmonious in tone: the whole scintillating with a picturesqueness beyond the ken or brush of any painter living or dead.
Its surface was then carefully waterproofed with suitable varnishes, and the work was completed. Trials proved that, rude as was this first attempt compared with the elegant craft now turned out from paper, it had marked merits, among which were, its remarkable stiffness, the symmetry of the hull with respect to its long axis, and the smoothness of the water-surface."
The records kept by accurate observers at various points on the Lakes for the last ten years do not seem to confirm this theory; but it has been well established by the recent observations of Colonel Graham, at both ends of Lake Michigan, that there is a semi-diurnal lunar tide on that lake of at least one third of a foot. The evaporation from this great water-surface must be immense.
"Ah, your touch!" the sighing voice continued. "It's like my softest lawn. Your hair feels as my grass feels on the hill-tops, and the skin of your cheeks is smooth and cool as the water-surface of my lily ponds at midnight. I know you" it raised its tones to singing. "You are children. I kiss you all!" "I feel you," Judy said in her clear, quiet voice. "But you're cold."
The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon's soldiers.
But the time had come when even these slight supports were to fail. It was when they arrived upon the brink of a lagoon, and a water-surface gleamed before their eyes; reflected by a daylight that struggled dimly down through the tops of the tall trees. The trees rose out of the water, their trunks wide apart, but their branches intermingling.
The two animals, however, belong to very different branches of the reptile world, and are by no means the most formidable of the Mesozoic reptiles. Many orders of the land reptiles sent a branch into the waters in an age which, we saw, was predominantly one of water-surface.
In comparing these two series of observations, it is found that towards the end of 1852, when the draining of the lake was finished, and the following summer had completely dried the newly exposed soil and, of course, greatly diminished the water-surface a change took place in the relative temperature of those two stations.
"All right," said Dr. Fisher bravely. So Jasper took the deserted post by the pillar, and whistled a Strauss waltz. Thereupon a most extraordinary hopping up and down the hall was commenced, the two figures bobbing like a pair of corks on a quivering water-surface. The doors opened, and several faces appeared, amongst the number Mrs. Fisher's.
The ship had landed on a small plateau, and downhill from it a spring gushed out with such force that the water-surface was rounded by pressure from below. The water overflowed and went down toward the sea. "I think we're all right," said Al, the pilot. But he stayed in his seat, in case the ship threatened to sway over. Cochrane inspected the outer world. "Well?"
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