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NATURAL CATCHES

Any landscape feature that holds or channels water is considered a natural catch. Finding such a source is usually the easiest way to obtain water. Yet by and large I don't recommend this technique to my survival students.

It's difficult, you see, to locate natural catches that haven't been tainted by chemical sprays. Furthermore, many of our waterways—even those in national parks—are also infected with carriers of amoebic dysentery, heartworm, salmonellosis, and hepatitis.

Still, provided you take proper precautionary and purification measures, some natural catches can be viable drinking sources. Here's a list of the most common of these, with information on how to use them safely.

Water channels and holders: This category includes rivers, lakes, ponds, and streams. The safest catches, by far, of the four—and the only ones I advise using—are streams. Any drinking water drawn from such a source should—of course—be clear and running. (Generally speaking, the higher up a stream you go, and the faster it's running, the safer the water will be for drinking.) Examine the small water channel before you sip, though. You should see no signs of man's presence but, instead, plenty of aquatic vegetation, fish, small insect life, and—along the banks-animal tracks. Remember, however, that such prints don't necessarily mean the water is safe for humans. Wild creatures frequently drink from very polluted water sources—and even eat deadly poisonous plants—with no apparent ill effects.

Furthermore, I don't advise drinking directly from a stream becauseby doing so—you may stir up the bottom and ingest some debris. However, you can easily improvise a containera rock basin or a hollowed log—to collect the fluid. To make a rock cup, simply chip a depression out of a very soft stone with a smaller, harder rock. (You'll lessen your chance of cracking the cup if you use soft glancing blows.)

You can turn a log or stump into a container by using hot coals to burn a hole in the wood. (Blow on the embers to expedite the process.) After the coals have burned down, it should be easy to scrape the charred wood out with a knife or sharp rock. A 16-ounce cup can be made from a soft wood (such as pine) in less than an hour by this method, and a larger one-gallon container can be burned out just as quickly if you use a lot of coals. (Be careful, of course, not to make your container from part of a poisonous tree—such as a yew or some varieties of locust—because the wood's toxins may spoil the liquid.)

If the stream's water is muddy or has a lot of suspended particles, you can filter it. A piece of cloth will do fine for this job. You can also make a cup-shaped strainer from bunches of matted bark strips or nonpoisonous grass. Or you can simply put clean sand in a hollow log with a grass mesh bottom, rinse the sand until water coursing through comes out clear, and then pour your liquid through that mineral filter.

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