Common Science. Carleton Washburne
"Water seeks its own level."
Why does a spring bubble up from the ground?
What makes the water come up through the pipe into your house?
Why is a fire engine needed to pump water up high?
You remember that up where the pull of the earth and the sun balance each other, water could not flow or flatten out. Let us try to imagine that water, here on the earth, has lost its habit of flattening out whenever possible—that, like clay, it keeps whatever shape it is given.
First you notice that the water fails to run out of the faucets. (For in most places in the world as it really is, the water that comes through faucets is simply flowing down from some high reservoir.) People all begin to search for water to drink. They rush to the rivers and begin to dig the water out of them. It looks queer to see a hole left in the water wherever a person has scooped up a pailful. If some one slips into the river while getting water, he does not drown, because the water cannot close in over his head; there is just a deep hole where he has fallen through, and he breathes the air that comes down to him at the bottom of the hole. If you try to row on the water, each stroke of the oars piles up the water, and the boat makes a deep furrow wherever it goes so that the whole river begins to look like a rough, plowed field.
When the rivers are used up, people search in vain for springs. (No springs could flow in our everyday world if water did not seek its own level; for the waters of the springs come from hills or mountains, and the higher water, in trying to flatten out, forces the lower water up through the ground on the hillsides or in the valleys.) So people have to get their water from underground or go to lakes for it. And these lakes are strange sights. Storms toss up huge waves, which remain as ridges and furrows until another storm tears them down and throws up new ones.
But with no rivers flowing into them, the lakes also are used up in time. The only fresh water to be had is what is caught from the rain. Even wells soon become useless; because as soon as you pump up the water surrounding the pump, no more water flows in around it; and if you use a bucket to raise the water, the well goes dry as soon as the supply of water standing in it has been drawn.
You will understand more about water seeking its own level if you do this experiment:
Experiment 1. Put one end of a rubber tube over the narrow neck of a funnel (a glass funnel is best), and put the other end of the tube over a piece of glass tubing not less than 5 or 6 inches long. Hold up the glass tube and the funnel, letting the rubber tube sag down between them as in Figure 1. Now fill the funnel three fourths full of water. Raise the glass tube higher if the water starts to flow out of it. If no water shows in the glass tube, lower it until it does. Gradually raise and lower the tube, and notice how high the water goes in it whenever it is held still.
This same thing would happen with any shape of tube or funnel. You have another example of it when you fill a teakettle: the water rises in the spout just as high as it does in the kettle.
Fig. 1. The water in the tube rises to the level of the water in the funnel.
Why water flows up into your house. It is because water seeks its own level that it comes up through the pipes in your house. Usually the water for a city is pumped into a reservoir that is as high as the highest house in the city. When it flows down from the reservoir, it tends to rise in any pipe through which it flows, to the height at which the water in the reservoir stands. If a house is higher than the surface of the water in the reservoir, of course that house will get no running water.
Why fire engines are needed to force water high. In putting out a fire, the firemen often want to throw the water with a good deal of force. The tendency of the water to seek its own level does not always give a high enough or powerful enough stream from the fire hose; so a fire engine is used to pump the water through the hose, and the stream flows with much more force than if it were not pumped.
Application 2. A. C. Wheeler of Chicago bought a little farm in Indiana, and had a windmill put up to supply the place with water. But at first he was not sure where he should put the tank into which the windmill was to pump the water and from which the water should flow into the kitchen, bathroom, and barn. The barn was on a knoll, so that its floor was almost as high as the roof of the house. Which would have been the best place for the tank: high up on the windmill (which stood on the knoll by the barn), or the basement of the house, or the attic of the house?
Fig. 2. Where is the best location for the tank?
Fig. 3. When the tank is full, will the oil overflow the top of the tube?
Application 3. A man was about to open a garage in San Francisco. He had a large oil tank and wanted a simple way of telling at a glance how full it was. One of his workmen suggested that he attach a long piece of glass tubing to the side of the tank, connecting it with an extra faucet near the bottom of the tank. A second workman said, "No, that won't do. Your tank holds ever so much more than the tube would hold, so the oil in the tank would force the oil up over the top of the tube, even when the tank was not full." Who was right?
Section 3. The sea of compressed air in which we live: Air pressure.
Does a balloon explode if it goes high in the air?
What is suction?
Why does soda water run up a straw when you draw on the straw?
Why will evaporated milk not flow freely out of a can in which there is only one hole?
Why does water gurgle when you pour it out of a bottle?
We are living in a sea of compressed air. Every square inch of our bodies has about 15 pounds of pressure against it. The only reason we are not crushed is that there is as strong pressure inside of our bodies pushing out as there is outside pushing in. There is compressed air in the blood and all through the body. If you were to lie down on the ground and have all the air pumped out from under you, the air above would crush you as flat as a pancake. You might as well let a dozen big farm horses trample on you, or let a huge elephant roll over you, as let the air press down on you if there were no air underneath and inside your body to resist the pressure from above. It is hard to believe that the air and liquids in our bodies are pressing out with a force great enough to resist this crushing weight of air. But if you were suddenly to go up above the earth's atmosphere, or if you were to stay down here and go into a room from which the air were to be pumped all at once, your body would explode like a torpedo.
When you suck the air out of a bottle, the surrounding air pressure forces the bottle against your tongue; if the bottle is a small one, it will stick there. And the pressure of the air and blood in your tongue will force your tongue down into the neck of the bottle from which part of the air has been taken.
In the same way, when you force the air out of a rubber suction cap, such as is used to fasten reading lamps to the head of a bed, the air pressure outside holds the suction cap tightly to the object against which you first pressed it, making it stick there.
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