Water

Where cultivation on irrigated fields prevailed, a definite social order came into existence, for this form of agriculture requires the close cooperation of all the inhabitants of each separate village under common leadership. This factor may have determined the social organisation of the people of Java and other parts of the archipelago until the present day.
— Bernard H. M. Vlekke, Nusantara: a History of Indonesia (1959), 12.

Aside from oxygen, water is man’s most important requirement and without a daily supply of at least one and a half pints his life expectancy is only a matter of days. Lack of food is only a threat after several weeks, and in a reasonable climate such basics as clothing and shelter can be dispensed with altogether.
— Norman Smith, Man and Water, Peter Davies, 1975, 69.

We made from water every living thing.
— The Koran, Sura 21 (The Prophets): 31.

The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds.
— Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – 55 BCE), De Rerum Natura (“About Natural Things”).

… air is chilled during its expansion and precipitates the water vapour that it contains. You can show this in the following way:

In a darkened room, send a strong beam of light through a glass tube three feet long and three inches wide [90 cm x 8 cm diameter]. The tube should be filled with humid air and stopped at its ends by glass plates. Connect the tube by means of a clamp to a container, about one-fourth its capacity, from which the air has been removed by a pump. (The empty cylinder of the pump would serve this purpose very well.)

Now release the clamp which connects the empty container to the tube. Having more room, the air in the tube expands and becomes colder. As a result, a dense and brilliant cloud immediately fills the tube.

In science, what is true for the small is true for the large. And so we see that by combining the conditions observed on a large scale in nature, we could obtain on a small scale the phenomena of atmospheric clouds.
— John Tyndall (1820 – 1893), quoted in The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers, Appleton 1896.

Water may polish the rocks, but it nowhere leaves straight scratches upon their surface; it may furrow them, but these furrows are sinuous, whilst glaciers smooth and level uniformly, the hardest parts equally with the softest, and like a hard file, rub to uniform continuous surfaces the rocks upon which they move.
— Louis Agassiz (1807 – 1873)

Potable, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our national beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific — and without science we are as snakes and toads.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1906.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full. Unto the place whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
— Holy Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:7.

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892), The Brook.

… even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
— Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 – 1909) The Garden of Proserpine.

Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

– When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.
– By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.
Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:
–So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma’am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don’t make them in the one pot.
— James Joyce (1882 – 1941) Ulysses, Bodley Head edition, 13 – 14.

Water is the principle, or the element of things. All things are water.
— Thales of Miletus (c. 640-546 BCE)

I’m forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air …
— 19th century popular song

Its banks were too precipitous to allow of our watering the cattle, but the men eagerly descended to quench their thirst, which a powerful sun had contributed to increase; nor shall I ever forget the cry of amazement that followed their doing so, or the looks of terror and disappointment with which they called out to inform me that the water was so salt as to be unfit to drink! This was, indeed, too true: on tasting it, I found it to be extremely nauseous, and strongly impregnated with salt, being apparently a mixture of sea and fresh water. Whence this arose, whether from local causes, or from a communication with some inland sea, I knew not, but the discovery was certainly a blow for which I was not prepared.
— Charles Sturt, Two expeditions into the interior of Southern Australia during the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831. 2 vols: London: Smith Elder and Co., 1833. Facsimile edition published by the Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1963, vol I, 86.

On a closer examination, we discovered some springs in the very bed of the river, from which a considerable stream was gushing, and from the incrustation around them, we had no difficulty in guessing at their nature: they were brine springs, and I collected a quantity of salt from the brink of them.
— Charles Sturt, Two expeditions into the interior of Southern Australia during the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831. 2 vols: London: Smith Elder and Co., 1833. Facsimile edition published by the Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1963, vol I, pages 95-96.

If any person whatever is detected in throwing any filth into the stream of fresh water, cleaning fish, erecting pigsties near it or taking water out of the Tanks, on conviction before a magistrate their house will be taken down and forfeit £5 for each offence to the Orphan Fund.
— The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 18th December 1803, quoted in F. J. J. Henry, The Water Supply and Sewerage of Sydney, 1939.

With much pain we have lately observed individuals washing themselves in this stream of water, particularly in that spot which runs centrally from King Street because that spot is almost secluded from every eye, that of curiosity excepted.
— The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 1820, quoted in F. J. J. Henry, The Water Supply and Sewerage of Sydney, 1939.

Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel
— Holy Bible, Genesis, 49:4.

Food was more plentiful at Abydos than what they had had on the march, with the result that the men overate themselves, and this, combined with the change of water, caused many deaths in what remained of the army.
— Herodotus (c. 480 BCE – 425 BCE), The Histories, Book 9, Penguin Classics, 564.

Living creatures are nourished by food, and food is nourished by rain; rain itself is the water of life, which comes from selfless worship and service.
— Bhagavad Gita, 3:14, in the translation of Eknath Easwaran, Arkana Books, 1985.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In 1833, at Grenelle, M. Murot began to bore for artesian water with the most primitive equipment, no more than an 18-metre gin and a pair of treadwheels powered by up to twelve men. The work was destined to go on for years. When a depth of 500 metres was reached in October 1839, the well was still bone dry. Much criticism and even ridicule was levelled at Murot’s techniques and Arago’s ideas; neither, however, was deterred … the greensand was finally struck in February 1841 at a depth of 548 metres. The result was well worth the effort. Water spouted to a height of 33 metres above the ground at a rate of 4,000 cubic metres per day, a very substantial boost to the supplies of Paris.
— Norman Smith, Man and Water, Peter Davies, 1975, 108.

The Samians … are responsible for … a tunnel nearly a mile long, eight feet wide and eight feet high, driven clean through the base of a hill nine hundred feet in height.
— Herodotus (c. 480 BCE – 425 BCE), The Histories, Book 3, Penguin Classics, 228.

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