Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1883 — Water. [ARTICLE]

Water.

Water is so common that few person* think of it as the most important factor in the building up and civilization of ths world. The rocks were mud and sand made by water and laid down b/'ft, one kind on top of another. Coal, made ot plants, was covered up by water, so that the loiten plants were kept there and changed to coal. Veins of lead, copper, gold, silver and crystals, were cracks in the rocks, filled with water that had these precious things dissolved in it And water, as iee (glaciers), ground np rocks into earth, in which plants can now, the sea and streams helping to do the work. Water builds plants, and animals, too. Three-quarters of what they are made of is water. When you pay twenty cents for a peck of potatoes you are really paying fifteen of the cents for the water that is in the potatoes. A boy who weighs eighty pounds, if perfectly dried up, would only weigh twenty pounds. And there can be no potatoes or boy without water. It must dissolve things to make them into new things; and ft carries them where they are wanted to build the new things. It softens food, and then as watery blood carries the food to every part of the body to make new flesh and bones, that we grow and have strength. It carries the plant’s food up into the plant Water carries man and goods in boats, and, as steam, drives the cars. It makes the wheels go In the factories. It is a great worker, and we could not get along without it It makes much of the beauty fa the world.