In the veins it flows steadily, because the _capillary_ veins, the ones like hairs, are so small that the spurts can't be felt beyond them.

The blood in the veins is thick and dark, because it has taken up all the impurities from the system; but when it gets to the lungs your breath takes up all these and carries them off, leaving the blood pure again for another round.

Now the arteries are long elastic tubes, that is to say, they will stretch a little, and fly back again, if you pull them, and when one is cut nearly but not quite off, the contraction keeps it wide open.

If it is cut or torn entirely in two, the end draws back, and nine times in ten, if the artery is a small one, the drawing back shuts the end up entirely and the blood stops.

But it is better to tear it than to cut it, because when torn the edges are jagged and it shrivels up more.