Water

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the public school system; gave concessions for the construction of railroads; encouraged, by granting special concessions, the development of mining and the establishment of industrial manufactures; invited foreign colonization, and introduced modern machinery for the development of the agricultural resources of the country. He called around him men who had been his pronounced enemies, and made them his steadfast friends and trusted assistants. At this time, the constitution of Mexico provided that no president could be elected to succeed himself, and under this provision, Diaz retired to private life at the expiration of his first term of four years, and Manuel Gonzalez was elected to succeed him. The administration of Gonzalez was in such marked contrast to that of Diaz, being characterized by extravagance and corruption in the administration of public affairs, that the people with one voice demanded the return of Diaz to public life. In 1884, he was re-elected, the constitution was amended, and from that time to the present, he has been successively elected to the presidency, making sixteen years of continuous service as chief magistrate of his country, and twenty years in all that he has served in this capacity. During this period Mexico has enjoyed, for the first time in her history, a quarter of a century of uninterrupted peace, and the development of the country and people has been remarkable. A network of railroads has penetrated nearly every part of the republic where only cart roads and mule trails previously existed, thus bringing the remote regions in easy communication with the markets of the world where their varied products find ready sale. Great manufacturing concerns have been established, the mining industry has been developed, the school system has been improved, public credit has been securely established, the army has been reorganized, and its discipline, arms and equipments,have been brought up to the latest and most approved pattern, and lif e,property and personal liberty made as secure in Mexico as in any country in the world. In this remarkable transition, the power of one master mind, the strength of one guiding hand, is seen in every change that has occurred. Whatever credit may be due those who have assisted in making the Mexico of today, it cannot be denied that the accomplishment of these results is largely due to the genius and statesmanship of the president. More than one hundred men have at various times

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ruled over the Mexican people, but it has remained for Diaz to accomplish that for which Hidalgo and Morelos died, and which Juarez lived to inaugurate but not to consummate. With this record, Diaz would gladly retire to private live leaving younger men to bear the burden he has so long and faithfully borne, but his people will not consent for him to do so.

Judging the man by what he has accomplished with the facilities and material at his command, we feel justified in endorsing the sentiment of the Mexican people, and unhesitatingly assert, that when his life's achievements shall be studied by those who are to follow after, Porfirio Diaz will be given a foremost place among the great men of his age.

WIDOWED. BY SARAH E. PEARSON.

Quietly, hoveringly, Broodingly, lovingly, Stealeth the shadow of night o'er the lea; Swiftly and covertly, Sadly, and silently Stealeth the shadows of grief over me. The darkness will lift from the breast of the river, It's ripples will sparkle again in the sun;

But the mists of my heart will be lifted, ah, never, It's desolate night-watch is only begun.

Relentlessly, steadily, Resistlessly, ploddingly, Days, months and years in their cycle will roll; Tenderly, yearningly, Wisely my Father Will draw the vail over the bruise in my soul. My duties are doubled; my pleasures divided; My treasure set high like a lamp in the skies; Yet I trust that through discipline, faith will be welded, That the mists shall not cover the light of my eyes.

WATER BY DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE, DIRECTOR EXPERIMENT STATION, STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, LOGAN, UTAH.

In the beginning, when the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, there was, as it seems, no land upon the earth. In the beginning, according to geological history, one mighty ocean covered the whole earth; and it was only by slow degrees, and after water had reigned alone for many ages, that the solid ground showed itself, timidly and stolenly, above the restless waves of the world-ocean. True, in later times, the earth, assisted by many contending forces, lifted up the continents and the mountains, until the angry fury of the ocean waves became as the futile petulancy of a child at play. Now, the land is master; the ocean is servant.

In those early days, when solitary islands represented the great continents of today, nearly all life upon the earth was adapted to existence in water; the animals were of the lower orders, many of which we find in the present ocean; and with few exceptions, the plants were of an aquatic nature. In that day, water was of first importance to living things: from that time until the present, water has remained one of the great forces that condition the prosperity of the earth. The great importance of water has been realized by mankind from the earliest times. With earth, air and fire, water was classed by the ancients as one of the four elements that constituted the world. Modern science, working under more favorable conditions, has shown that water is not an element, but a compound; it has also demonstrated, with additional force, the import-

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ance of water in nearly all the processes that take place upon and within the earth. As is well known, pure water is made up of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. Both of these elements are very light gases; hydrogen is the lightest of all known substances, and oxygen is only a trifle heavier than air. When hydrogen burns in oxygen, water is formed. It requires exactly two volumes of hydrogen to unite with one volume of oxygen; the chemical formula for water is therefore H2 0. The fact that water is burned hydrogen may help us to understand why water is so useful in putting out fires; a thing that has itself been burned as much as possible, will naturally afford the greatest protection to a combustible substance. One of the most important properties of water is the power it possesses of dissolving to a certain extent the majority of the substances found upon the earth. As a consequence, water as it is found in nature, is seldom pure; but holds in solution small quantities of the materials, through which, or over which, it has passed in its descent from the highlands. Salt springs, which occur so frequently in Utah, are usually formed when underground water passes over layers of salt; saleratus springs are similarly formed when water comes into contact with deposits of saleratus; and sulphur springs come up from places in the earth where sulphur gases are formed. The purest natural water is that which falls from the clouds as rain or snow. Absolutely pure water is very difficult to obtain, and is seldom found outside of the chemist's laboratory. When water carries in solution certain substances, its power to dissolve other substances is very much increased. For instance, pure water, running over limestones, exerts only a very slight solvent action on the rocks; but water that has soaked through soils on which crops have grown, has a very strong tendency to dissolve allkinds of lime-rock. Wherever plants have grown, there are decomposing vegetable remains, which give out the gas carbon dioxide. This gas is soluble in water: therefore, rain water passing through soils, will dissolve a considerable amount of it. Such "carbonated" water dissolves lime- stone with great ease; and will form deep furrows in the limestones over which they pass. In

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just this manner have the great caves in limestones been formed. It may be, at first, that there was a small crack, penetrating far into the limestone cliff. Water, holding carbon dioxide in solution, soaked into this crack, filled it, dissolved away a thin layer from the walls of the crevice, and thus made it larger. The water, as it drained away, was replaced by new portions; and each addition dissolved away a quantity of limestone, until, at length, the cave was formed. Water has been the active force in producing many large iron deposits. Some soils contain a high proportion of iron. When the water containing carbon dioxide mixes with the iron in soils, some of the iron is dissolved, and is carried along with the stream until it issues from the ground. Here a portion of the carbon dioxide, which is a gas, will air, and a corre- escape into the sponding amount of iron will be deposited. Thus, at the head of many springs, we observe a yellowish brown deposit of iron oxide. In past ages, when this process occurred on a much more extensive scale, large beds of iron ore were produced; from them comes much of the present iron supply. In like manner, water that has passed over limestone, when it comes to the surface, will deposit limestone; hence, a white deposit is seen about many springs, especially, about the so-called mineral springs. The hardest rocks, and those that we think of as being the most insoluble, are partly dissolved by water, that holds carbon dioxide and ordinary air in solution. In all rocks there are tiny cracks or openings that were formed when the rock was made. In the fall, these cracks become filled with water; in winter, the water freezes, expands, and the cracks are made larger. At times, this results in huge rock masses splitting off from the cliff where they

originally belonged. In the spring, when the snows melt, the

water begins to dissolve the accessible portions of the rocks; the dissolved material is carried away by the water, and furrows and

gullies are produced. Every year these processes are repeated; of and with the help of the mountain streams, with their load stones, the gullies are deepened into great canyons. By the per- dioxide, and other sistent action of water, aided by air, carbon substances, the mountains have been worn down thousands of feet,

and are still being worn away every year.

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Water as an active agent is met on every hand in inorganic

nature. It has been a controlling factor in shaping the earth's

surface, and in producing many materials of which the crust of the earth is made. In the vegetable kingdom also, water plays a fundamentally important part. The germination of seeds can take place only under the influence of a certain degree of heat, and in the presence of a definite amount of water. If a seed that has partly

germinated, be dried, further germination is immediately arrested. In a soil that is too dry, seeds will not germinate, no matter how favorable all other conditions may be. When the seed has become a young plant, the influence of water is equally great. For the maintenance of its life, the plant must take up from the soil certain mineral ingredients. This is done by means of little roothairs, that grow in between the small rock particles of which the soil is composed. The mineral matters dissolved by the root-hairs are distributed throughout the plant by the water that fills all the plant tissues. The substances produced in the leaves are carried by the water of the plant tissues to the organs that may be in need of nutriment. Very often a young plant contains nearly ninety per cent of water, which is more than the amount contained in milk. Many plants at their time of most rapid growth contain not less than seventy-five per cent of water. In Utah, we are very familiar with the need a plant has for water; we know how soon a crop will wither if the water supply he insufficient. When a plant dies for want of water, it simply means that the nutritive materials of the plant can no longer move freely from place to place, and the plant organism becomes clogged. The material of the plant, in which the plant-life resides —the protoplasm— is, also, incapable of acting, if deprived of a portion of its water. It is not only as a carrier of food materials that water is of importance to the vegetable kingdom; for it undergoes remarkable changes under the influence of the life processes of the plant, and becomes part of the plant structure. As explained in previous articles, the leaves of a plant gather carbon from the atmosphere. This carbon, of itself, is of no value to the plant; it must be elaborated into other compounds before it can be of value to living