the soil, but many parts of the country are almost wholly
deserted. The waters run off the mountains so quickly that they often
form vast floods which spread over the lower valleys and plains. The
floods destroy the crops and drown the people.

Eastward of China there is an arm of the Pacific Ocean known as the
Yellow Sea. Why do you suppose this name was given to the sea? One of
the great rivers of China, the Yangste-kiang, empties into it. The river
rises in the barren mountains of which we have just been speaking, and
it is continually bringing so much mud and sand that a whole sea is
being filled. Long before a ship comes within sight of the land the
waters are seen to be of a muddy, yellow color.

In the smaller valleys of Korea the natives build dikes along the rivers
to keep the mountain floods from spreading sand and gravel over their
rice fields. Every year they have to make the dikes higher as the river
beds fill up.

Thus we see that all over the world people are suffering because they
have not obeyed the laws which Nature has made for the protection of the
soil.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE USE AND CARE OF WATER

The ocean is the home of the water. The water would always remain in the
ocean if it could, but the sun and air are continually at work stealing
little particles away and sending them on long journeys.

The water particles are so small as they rise from the ocean that we
cannot see them. By and by they crowd together and make the clouds that
float across the sky. As soon as the clouds meet colder air, the little
water particles rush together and thus become larger and larger until
they grow so heavy that they can no longer float in the air, but must
fall. Some of them fall into the ocean again, but others drop upon the
land.

The raindrops that reach the land have many sorts of stories to tell
before they again get back to the ocean. Some of them are at once
snatched up again and are started upon another journey. The thirsty air,
whether over the ocean or over the land, is ever in search of water
particles.

If the air is very cold, the clouds turn to snow instead of rain. The
feathery flakes fall slowly through the air and form a soft white mantle
over the earth. Those that fall on lofty mountains form great banks
which may not entirely melt and turn to water until late in the summer.

The raindrops that fall where the slopes are steep, where Nature has
grown little vegetation, or w