40 Outlook to Nature * 



of rocks in my region. So I grew up in 

 ignorance of the fact that every little part 

 of the earth's surface has a history, that 

 there are reasons for sandbanks and for bogs 

 as well as for stratified rocks. This is but 

 another illustration of the old book-slavery, 

 whereby we are confined to certain formal 

 problems, whether or not these problems 

 have any relation to our conditions. I 

 well remember what a great surprise it was 

 to learn that the sculpturing of the fields 

 can be understood, and that the reasons for 

 every bank and swamp and knoll and mud- 

 hole can be worked out. 



There was a field back of the barn that con- 

 tained hundreds of narrow knolls, averaging 

 three to four feet high. At one side of every 

 hummock was a narrow deep pocket that until 

 midsummer was filled with water. The field was 

 so rough that it could not be plowed, and so it 

 was continuously used as a pasture. It was an 

 Elysian field for a boy. Every pool was a 

 world of life, with strange creatures and mys- 

 terious depths, and every knoll was a point of 



