Can Fresh Water be Found in the Sea?
Large quantities of fresh water are found at certain places in the sea. This is particularly the case at the mouth of large rivers, where enormous volumes of fresh water are continually being poured out into the sea and spread out over the surface for many miles. The outflow of fresh water from the Amazon is over a million cubic feet a second and this is found on the surface two hundred miles from shore. After a while its freshness entirely disappears as its mingling with the salt water is completed. Ships short of fresh water have often obtained a supply from the sea near the mouth of the Amazon.
Off the mouth of this river many years ago a ship saw another vessel flying signals of distress. ‘Water, water! ‘We are dying of thirst!” ran the message. From the friendly vessel went back the advice: “Cast down your buckets where you are,” The distressed ship could not understand and signaled again and again, always with the same result. At last the captain let down his buckets and up they came, brimful of sparkling fresh water from the Amazon’s mouth.
But fresh water can be obtained from the sea in a still more remarkable way. Much of the rain that falls in Australia sinks through the soil till it reaches an impervious layer of rock. It runs along the top of this, perhaps hundreds of feet below the surface of the ground, and finally makes its way up through the sea as a submarine spring. Off the eastern coast of Australia fresh water from these springs is often dipped up in buckets by the crews of ships.
Off some of the South Sea islands the natives dive to the bottom of the sea and fetch up fresh water for drinking purposes in hollowed gourds. This is surely the most astonishing of all ways to obtain drinking water.
Ground ice has been seen rising to the surface of the sea off the Atlantic coast of America, coming, no doubt, from a submarine spring. When the fresh water reached the cold sea water, which was below freezing point, it rapidly froze into ice and, being lighter, rose to the surface.
