Humanity at large has never estimated water at its true value, yet all the gifts in Pandora’s fabled box could never equal that one inestimable boon of the Creator to the human race. Apart from its practical value, there is nothing in all the wide domain of Nature more beautiful, for in all its myriad forms and conditions it appeals equally to the artistic sense. In the restless ocean, now sleeping tranquilly in opaline beauty beneath the summer sun, now rising in foam-crested mountainous waves beneath the winter’s biting blast, its sublimity awes us. In the mighty river, rolling majestically on its tortuous course, impatient to unite itself with mother ocean, its resistless energy fascinates us. In the gigantic iceberg, with its translucent sides of shimmering green, its weird grandeur enthralls us. In the pearly dew drop, glittering on the trembling leaf, or the hoar frost, sparkling like a wreath of diamonds in the moon’s silvery rays: in the brawling mountain torrent, or the gentle brook--meandering peacefully through verdant meadows, in the mighty cataract or the feathery cascade, in the downy snowflake, or the iridescent icicle--in each and all of its many witching forms it is beautiful beyond compare. But its claims to our admiration rest not alone upon its ever varying beauty. When consumed with thirst, what beverage can equal a draught of pure, cold water? In sickness its value is simply incalculable--especially in fevers; in fact, the famous lines of Sir Walter Scott, in praise of woman, might be justly transposed in favor of water to read thus: “When pain and sickness wring the brow, A health-restoring medium thou.” And, if we admire it for its beauty and esteem it as a beverage, how inconceivably should these feelings be intensified by the knowledge that its remedial virtues are in nowise inferior to its other qualities! The next in importance of the great health agencies is Fresh Air. Perhaps we ought to class it as the most important, for although people have been known to live for days without water, yet without air their hours would be quickly numbered. Air is a vital necessity to the human organism, and the fresher the better--it cannot be too fresh. The oxygen gas in the air is the vitalizing element. The blood corpuscles when they enter the lungs through the capillaries are charged with carbonic acid gas (which is a deadly poison), but when brought into contact with the oxygen, for which they have a wonderful affinity, they immediately absorb it, after ejecting the carbonic acid gas. The oxygen is at once carried to the heart, and by that marvelous pumping machine sent bounding through the arteries to contribute to the animal heat of the body.