From all substances which exist in the nature water is one of the most necessary for the person. It would seem, it is that substance which is important for feeling on a smell. Then why the person does not feel a water smell?
Clear water has no smell as believe many. Unlike people, some animals catch a water smell. Elephants, for example, are capable to guess water at distance of many kilometers. The question is not in whether water smells, and in why it does not smell for the person?
As the sense of smell works
To understand why it so, it is necessary to address the device of an organ of smell. Sense of smell – one of five sense organs which involves very large volume of a brain. It not only enhances taste of food, but also warns about danger. Thanks to sense of smell of people distinguishes smells, and they, in turn, are capable to report such emotions as fear, grief or love.
At people the small area of olfactory body represents a surface about 1 cm2 in each nasal pass. The sense of smell allows animals to distinguish a huge set of chemical components which are called "odorants" with receptors of smells even if they are present at small amounts. Odorants are flying chemicals which are brought in a nose together with the inhaled air. To feel any given smell, it is necessary to dissolve such substance in a small amount of water or fat. Having got into a nose, odorants are distinguished. There are several theories concerning work of sense of smell. Most of them claims that molecules of an odorant form connections with the site of an organ of smell. This connection depends on a form and the size of a molecule of an odorant. Then the nose sends a signal to a brain which defines a smell. Some odorants, for example, spirits, cause strong reaction, and some do not cause any. Olfactory bodies of mammals use a combination of different receptors in order that there was a reaction to a smell. So thousands of receptors of people can distinguish thousands of different smells.
The molecule of water consists of two substances, hydrogen and oxygen, and has the angular form.
Why water has no smell
Though many believe as if animals catch a water smell, actually it not absolutely so. Animals feel smells of plants and minerals which are near water. But there are also many types of organisms which are capable to catch a smell of the water. One more observation is that animals can distinguish water on a smell when there is a lot of it. Water molecules which contain in air are a constant stimulator for sense of smell. And when there is a constant stimulator, a brain just it ignores.
Going to a reservoir, the animal catches a water smell. But remaining near a reservoir long time, it ceases to smell it.
The sense of smell of the person does not react to water, unlike some other organisms and vertebrata in any way. Whether does it the person less capable to find water sources? Hardly. Ancestors of the modern person found water and used it. They combined all five sense organs and used very important tool: mind.