UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



watched over by some expert in the business, 

 which is, indeed, the case. This expert is water. Was 

 there ever such a sorter and sifter? See the vast 

 clay-banks, as uniform in quality and texture as a 

 snow-bank, slowly built up in the privacy of deep, 

 still rivers or lakes during hundreds or thousands 

 of years, implying a kind of secrecy and seclusion 

 of nature. Mountains of granite have been ground 

 down or disintegrated, and the clay washed out and 

 carried in suspension by the currents, till it was 

 impounded in some lake or basin, and then slowly 

 dropped. The great clay-banks and sand-banks of 

 the Hudson River Valley doubtless date from the 

 primary rocks of the Adirondack region. Much of 

 the quartz sand is still in the soil of that region, and 

 much of it is piled up along the river-banks, but 

 most of the clay has gone downstream and been 

 finally deposited in the great river terraces that are 

 now being uncovered and worked by the brickmak- 

 ers. The sand and the clay rarely get mixed; the 

 great hydraulic machine turns out a pretty pure pro- 

 duct. The occasional mingling of sand and gravel 

 shows that at times the workmen nodded, but the 

 wonder is that, on the whole, the two should be so 

 thoroughly separated, and so carefully deposited, 

 each by itself. Flowing water drops its coarser ma- 

 terial first, the sand next, and the mud and silt 

 last. Hence the coarser-grained rocks and conglom- 

 erates are built up in shallow water near shore, the 

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