196 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN 



and growth. Even while the vein of quartz was 

 gradually filling up the fissure, the fissure itself was 

 changing. It was probably becoming wider and 

 deeper, by the action of great forces underground. 

 For there is a great force at work in those under- 

 ground rocks which cracks and crumples them. It 

 pushes upon them so they are forced up in many 

 places, and the rocks that were hidden deep under- 

 ground are brought to light. 



Just as the seed that, hidden in the ground away 

 from the light and air, comes up when the sun calls 

 it, so the gold, the bright, yellow gold that looks so 

 like the sun's rays, at last comes to the surface. But 

 it was not the sunbeam that called the gol^. It was 

 pushed up by a force that comes from God, a strange 

 force, — lifted from its dark underground home where 

 no sunbeam could ever have found it, or seen its 

 golden glow. 



Then what do you suppose happened to those 

 flecks of gold? Why, the rain water went to work 

 again upon that vein of quartz and gold! Only this 

 time it was the rain water that fell upon the earth 

 and flowed away in brooks and rivers, and not the 

 underground water, that collected the gold and the 

 quartz so long ago and deposited them in the fissures. 



Would the rain water, then, flowing in brooks and 

 streams, spoil what the underground water had done? 

 Oh, no! not spoil it, only make it better! 



This time the rain water goes to work to wear 

 away the quartz, setting free the gold, so that now 

 bits of gold, from tiny flecks to large grains and 

 nuggets, are lying loose in the midst of quartz sand. 



