ROCK MAKING 213 



were part of a living creature when no eye could see 

 them to enjoy their delicate beauty. There were no 

 children then to run and pick up those shells which 

 had been cast up on the beach. But after millions 

 and millions of years they are seen preserved in their 

 marble bed. 



It seems very strange that drops of water, working 

 together, could have the strength to do such wonder- 

 ful things. It seems quite as strange as that those 

 dainty, starr^^ snowflakes we were talking about 

 could accumulate into such a powerful mass as to 

 stop steam engines. Who could believe that the 

 fragile shells made by those little marine animals, 

 some of them quite invisible, could accumulate in 

 such quantities as to be pressed into rocks massive 

 enough to make towering mountains! 



Yet in such marvelous ways does God work. To 

 those small and often unobserved creations He gives 

 the chance to do something great when they act to- 

 gether. They not only accomplish what might seem 

 an impossible thing, but they are so under the direc- 

 tion of His laws that they do their work at all times, 

 wherever they are. The raindrops are still wearing 

 away the rocks; the loosened fragments and particles 

 are still being deposited in the sea, where they all 

 even now are being made into rock. In the depths 

 of the ocean the shells are still accumulating, where 

 they rest upon those underneath with a pressure that 

 will make of them chalk or limestone or marble. 



