Being professionally interested in the finding and distribution of water, as engineer to an important waterworks, I have naturally been led to give this subject some attention and study, and I have derived no little pleasure in gathering together into the present volume the notes and memoranda which I have accumulated during a number of years, in the hope that my readers may find in it some matter of interest, and may be led to the contemplation of the wonders of nature.
Water in its various forms has been dealt with by some of the most eminent of scientists.
The subject, like the boundless ocean, is so wide, that there are few branches of scientific research in which it does not claim attention.
This book, however, does not pretend to be a scientific record; it is simply an ordinary person's interpretation of what he sees in nature, and represents his best efforts to describe the same.
Of such sources of information as were at my disposal, I have made free use: originality on such a theme was not contemplated, nor is it possible.
It is a truism that we know least about the common things we see and use every day of our lives.
