water, when continuous and when
interrupted. The interrupted stream fills the hollows of its bed.

Sec. 23. But the continuous stream takes the shape of its bed.

Sec. 24. Its exquisite curved lines.

When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much interrupted
by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool as it goes
along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity of motion. It pauses
after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and then goes
on again; and if in this comparatively tranquil and rational state of
mind it meets with an obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each
side of it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round; if it comes to a
step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing
at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a
continuous slope, not much interrupted by hollows, so that it cannot
rest, or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual
resting-places are not sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually
pushed out of them by the following current, before it has had time to
tranquillize itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that it
runs; the impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next,
until the whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating
motion. Now when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not
part at it, but clears it, like a racehorse; and when it comes to a
hollow, it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side,
but it rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a
ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence the whole appearance of the bed
of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the water altered in
their nature. The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools; the
leaps are light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of
splashing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet
curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the stream when it
has gained an impetus takes the shape of its bed, never stops, is
equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes down into every hollow,
not with a leap, but with a swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in
the bending line of a strong sea-wave, and comes up again on the other
side, over rock and ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard; if it
meet a rock three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will
neither par