Form I: How Rivers are Made
Have you ever seen a river? Who can tell me where the water comes from that fills it? Where does the water go? Let us try to understand this. Remember when we talked about the water cycle? As vapor rises into high, cool air or is carried with the air in winds up the sides of mountains, it turns into water again and comes falling down as rain. Now think where the rain that falls on mountains must go. Some of the water runs off on the surface, down the mountain slope. Some sinks in the ground and runs along in little streams below the surface. It will appear, bubbling out of the mountainside as a spring. The spring is the beginning of a river. From this spring the water trickles down until it meets other springs and they form together a larger stream, called a brook or creek. As the brook flows on, it is joined by other streams , until, little by little, it becomes a wide and deep river so large that boats can float on it. At last it finds its way to the ocean. Where a river begins is its source. The place where it flows into another body of water is its mouth. The land over which it flows is called a bed. A river has two banks; one on each side.
source:
- Home Geography for Primary Grades, Charlotte Mason
