MINERALS AND CRYSTALS 



The rain water about which we have just been 

 speaking does its work upon the surface of the earth. 

 Almost all of it, from time to time, is drawn up by 

 the sun to make the clouds, and comes back once 

 more as rain to continue in its work of carving out 

 and smoothing over the earth's surface. 



But some of the drops of rain never see the sun 

 again. They go down so deep that they do not 

 come back even in springs. They are not lost, 

 though, for all their wandering about deep, deep 

 under ground. Surely the Spirit of God is in the 

 earth, however far down the drops may go, and He 

 has given to these drops a work to do as well as to 

 those which fall upon the earth and flow off into 

 the brooks and rivers and oceans, and finally make 

 their way back to the sky. Would you like to know 

 what these tiny drops do which sink one by one so 

 deep down into the earth? 



The brooks, we know, need to have many, many 

 drops to make them able to pick up and carry away 

 pebbles and rocks, or even sand. A^Tiat can these 

 others accomplish so far underground where the 

 rocks are almost solidly packed together? Few as 

 they are, they carry away with them parts of the 

 rocks they travel through, only, instead of break- 

 ing off what they carry away, these drops dissolve 



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