Jack, Jill & Schweitzer

THE MOVING WATERS (246 pp.)--John Stewart Collis--Sloans ($3.75).

Author Collis proves that it is possible to write a good book about anything, no matter how obvious--or. as Carlyle put it, "Is any thing more wonderful than another if you consider it maturely?'' Taking his title from Keats ("The moving waters at their priestlike task /Of pure ablution round earth's human shores"). British Agricultural Expert Collis maturely considers the simple wonders of water. He hymns them with the same appealing two-part harmony of science and poetry which Rachel Carson brought to The Sea Around Us.

Why did Jack and Jill go up the hill to fetch that pail of water? Since they were English, they were heading for a pond which in a county like Sussex forms at the top of chalk hills and rarely dries up even during long-spell droughts. Is anyone inclined to think of a snowflake as frozen rain? It is nothing of the sort, says Author Collis. In their poetic way, most snowflakes crystallize around microscopic particles of star dust which fall continuously on the earth from outer space.

Nature's drive is always fluid drive, Collis reminds the reader: at least 80% of every living cell consists of water. Water not only quenches man's thirst, but gives him his basic food, which, intriguingly enough, according to Author Collis, is rocks. Every life-sustaining mineral sucked up from the soil by a plant was put there by raindrops and glaciers planing the tops off mountains, and by rivers carting the good new earth to the valleys. Says Collis: "Everywhere every mountain in the world is collapsing ... It is always thus with Nature. Wielding the tool of eternity, she works by softness and insinuation."

Throughout history, water has induced strange rites, adventures, tasks. In 1600, London had 4,000 water-carriers who delivered water to the doorstep just as milk is delivered today. Every spring the high priests of Egypt pump-primed the Nile with a human sacrifice. Above the facts, anecdotes and exotica, Author Collis places the healing serenity of water. He believes that "beside the still waters," troubled 20th century man can find what Schweitzer finds in the preludes and fugues of Bach, "a world of peace . . . contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."

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