Where Does the Rain Go?
Eventually almost all of the rain that falls runs into the rivers and lakes and later finds its way into the ocean, where it is again taken up into the air by the sun’s rays. But many other things happen to parts of the rain which do not find their way into the ocean. In the paved street, of course, where the water cannot sink in, it flows into the gutter and thence into the sewer and on down to the river or wherever it is that the sewers are emptied. You see, it depends very much on what the earth’s surface is covered with at the place where the rain falls. When it strikes where there is vegetation a great deal of it stays in the soil at a depth of comparatively few feet. If it is soil where trees and other plants grow a great deal of it is sucked up from the ground by this vegetation and given back into the air through the leaves and flowers. Some of the rain keeps sinking on down into the earth until it strikes some substance like rock or clay, through which it cannot sink, and then it follows along this until it finds something it can get through and collects in a pool and forms an underground lake, and may cause a spring to flow. Then there are also worms and other forms of animal life in the earth which use up some of the water. But it all gets back into the air eventually to come down some time again in the form of rain.