done, some day, all over England and Wales, and great part of
Scotland. For the mountain tops and moors, my boy, by a beautiful
law of nature, compensate for their own poverty by yielding a
wealth which the rich lowlands cannot yield. You do not
understand? Then see. Yon moor above can grow neither corn nor
grass. But one thing it can grow, and does grow, without which we
should have no corn nor grass, and that is--water. Not only does
far more rain fall up there than falls here down below, but even
in drought the high moors condense the moisture into dew, and so
yield some water, even when the lowlands are burnt up with
drought. The reason of that you must learn hereafter. That it is
so, you should know yourself. For on the high chalk downs, you
know, where farmers make a sheep-pond, they never, if they are
wise, make it in a valley or on a hillside, but on the bleakest
top of the very highest down; and there, if they can once get it
filled with snow and rain in winter, the blessed dews of night
will keep some water in it all the summer through, while the ponds
below are utterly dried up. And even so it is, as I know, with
this very moor. Corn and grass it will not grow, because there is
too little 'staple,' that is, soluble minerals, in the sandy soil.
But how much water it might grow, you may judge roughly for
yourself, by remembering how many brooks like this are running off
it now to carry mere dirt into the river, and then into the sea."

"But why should we not make dams at once; and save the water?"

"Because we cannot afford it. No one would buy the water when we
had stored it. The rich in town and country will always take
care--and quite right they are--to have water enough for
themselves, and for their servants too, whatever it may cost them.